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Catnip electronics

3,965 orders since Dec 12, 2012

Vilnius, LT, Lithuania

Ships from Lithuania.

Custom Work Available

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Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

5
39 4
57 3
17 2
5 1
3

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Average Ratings

Product: (4.50)

Documentation: (4.04)

Shipping: (4.38)

Communication: (4.31)

All Reviews

Arsenijs | July 21, 2023

Very satisfied with my purchase

For Low power LoRa I2C & RS485 node

Was shipped and arrived quickly, and was just what my friend wanted to get as a gift. Thank you so much!

Vladimir | Oct. 11, 2021

Everything works

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

One year or so with (non-rugged) sensors. They just work. Nothing was broken or broke over that time.

The coating of non-rugged sensors does indeed flake off (in my case it was ~6 months, YMMV), just as description says.

i2c is not an ideal protocol for long-ish wires. Errors do occur, but they are easy to handle in software (sanity checks, median filter and reboot after too many failures gave me months and months of continuous samples from multiple sensors) and hey, i2c version is cheaper! ^^

Couple of suggestions:
- please add a note that sensor address is saved so "smart" people like me won't start making a complex one-by-one startup and address change for a bunch of sensors connected to one SoC :D
- how about configurable attenuation (if the hardware allows)? All the samples I get are well within [300, 600] range, which is a bit of a waste of 16bit precision.

TL/DR: great sensor, nice price, fast shipping
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Response from Catnip electronics | Oct. 11, 2021
Hi Vladimir, thanks for the review! I will address your suggestions in the documentation asap. Frankly I don't see a point in artificially mapping the result into a single byte - a lot of people with scientific background love the sensor because it gives the most raw unprocessed data - I don't want to lose that.

Johannes | April 5, 2021

Amazing!

For Modbus RS485 soil moisture sensor

Hello! The Sensors are awesome, and the Developer is very Kind and Helpful! I use 5 of the rs485 sensors with a Arduino-Mega, and have attached a LCD where the values are shown directly when measuring, and I have add a sleep time, where in this sleep time period two graphs are shown, with Temperature and Moisture on this LCD! I can very recommend this product! Thanks!
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Response from Catnip electronics | April 5, 2021
Thank you for a great review, Johannes!

Edward | Aug. 2, 2020

Great sensors, easy to use with ESP8266

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I've been using these sensors for a while, starting with a Chirp that I eventually ended up using purely as an I2C sensor with an ESP8266. I recently purchased some of the sensor-only models and am impressed by their quality - easy to use with an Arduino library, with sensor readings that are stable even when reading extremely rarely. Thank you for making these!

Jerome | July 20, 2020

Good product

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Works well. I put it on a thin latex glove to limit the corrosion. Values are still coherent. I use it with an ESP32 for auto watering. Very satisfied by the result !

Josef | June 20, 2020

Great products, easy setup, got it up and running fast!

For Modbus RS485 soil moisture sensor

UPDATE:
Have the sensor network with 6 sensors up and running outdoors 24/7 since 2+ month with a Pi ZERO via an USB dongle (extra power supply to sensors, 20m daisychain), providing data to a MQTT server.
Readings are reproducible on individual sensor level, robust and accurate enough for irrigation.
Will order some more sensors...
UPDATE END!

My setup is one USB dongle with 6 rugged sensors in one daisy chain, connected with the T-interconnects. Soft- and hardware setup (followed the tutorial, made some changes in the python scripts to post the readings to a MQTT server) was swift and straight forward!
Calibration not done yet, will be next! The sensors show very narrow readings, so calibration shouldn´t be a big thing.
...
Scanning bus on port COM5 at baud rate 19200
Found 6 sensors: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
mosquitto_pub.exe -h xxx... -t office/garden/1 -m {"temperature":"25.8","moisture":" 274"}
mosquitto_pub.exe -h xxx... -t office/garden/2 -m {"temperature":"26.2","moisture":" 276"}
mosquitto_pub.exe -h xxx... -t office/garden/3 -m {"temperature":"25.8","moisture":" 274"}
mosquitto_pub.exe -h xxx... -t office/garden/4 -m {"temperature":"25.8","moisture":" 275"}
mosquitto_pub.exe -h xxx... -t office/garden/5 -m {"temperature":"26.0","moisture":" 271"}
mosquitto_pub.exe -h xxx... -t office/garden/6 -m {"temperature":"25.8","moisture":" 272"}
...

Ernestas | June 9, 2020

It is more than just a water sensor

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

Feels like plants started to talk to me with a delicate chirp.
Nice and well thought out device.
And plants are happier.

Sergey | Feb. 25, 2020

Thanks, everything is fine.

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Good sensor, working from the box even under esp . Seems reliable. There is only one little drawback - no any calibration values or formulas.
What i have figured out that dependency capacity-voltage almost linear it might be calculated through linear regression. For instance - for absolutely dried soil the capacity is going to be about 340 by 2,4V and 229 by 4.1V.
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Response from Catnip electronics | Feb. 26, 2020
Thank you for your review! Can you share your findings with the community? I would add it to the documentation.

Jens | Oct. 28, 2019

Really solid sensor. Top of class!

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

This is the best capacitive moisture sensor I've tested. It's fully featured, close to linear (to the degree I can measure it) and very flexible. I love that you can change the I2C address that easily, making it possible to have 100+ of these on one single micro (in theory, not reality). Well worth the money. I did a longer writeup and comparison of this and others on my blog https://flashgamer.com/blog/comments/testing-capacitive-soil-moisture-sensors
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Response from Catnip electronics | Nov. 1, 2019
Thanks for a good review and a very nice writeup! Regarding linearity - I must say this is true only with tap water. When in soil, salinity plays an important role - you can see a graph in pictures of the sensor on this page.

Thomas | March 11, 2019

Excellent, would buy again!

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I am using the rugged version to monitor the moisture and temperature of chili peppers from a Raspberry Pi. Shipping was very quick, so there was not much of a wait (northern Europe). The sensor was easy to connect, and the readings just work out-of-the-box using the chirp script (https://github.com/ageir/chirp-rpi). I have been collecting one data point per minute over the past week to draw graphs and curves and so far it has been great.

Calibration of the moisture sensor is delicate, and while that has nothing to do with the sensor itself, I found that it is best to keep the raw values instead of trying to rely on percentages. I also learned that it is critical to not touch or move the moisture sensor once it has found its place, lest that can skew the measurements. The temperature sensor (which seems to be located above the ground) is also much more useful than I expected: i learned that plants do get burned when exposed to the sun behind a window. In hindsight, I would have chosen the non-rugged version to have the light sensor too as I am using the sensor only indoors.

Alexandr | Feb. 10, 2019

Perfect product!

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I have been following the development of this project for a long time, built two sensors, one with the Particle Photon and the second with ESP8266, 4.7k Ohm pull-up resistors are needed.
Thanks.

Jonathan | Nov. 19, 2018

Great product and service

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

I ordered a few of these and liked them so much I ordered more. The seller stands by the devices and replaced one unit that I sent back to him because it was defective - he told me that he tests all the units and defective ones are rare. Communicating with the seller was quick and there were no language barriers. I've had no issues with the remaining devices, and they operate as expected. The only complaint I would make (if I had to make one) is that it takes a fair amount of time to receive the orders, but to be fair, I am in British Columbia, Canada, and these devices ship from Lithuania. I would gladly take the longer time rather over paying more for shipping, but be aware that it can take some time to receive these if you are in a hurry or need them in time for a gift. There's no documentation provided with the devices, but I would recommend printing the information from the device's website to keep for reference as it contains all the detailed information. you need there. I imagine I will be ordering more of these again in the future. Thanks so much for a great product and outstanding service.

Christian | Nov. 6, 2018

Simple and works

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

Not a lot to add. It works, is simple to use and well documented.
I can only wonder why such a thing only exists as indie electronics.

Ryan | June 25, 2018

Awesome vendor, awesome product

For Modbus RS485 soil moisture sensor

This sensor is great. I currently have it tied to a pi (with a 40 foot wire) with the usb adapter provided, and it works like a charm. The data is currently being ingested into Splunk, and controlling a solenoid valve. I will be purchasing more of these in the near future.

Alexander | May 22, 2018

Finally my first tests

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Hey :)

after about a year after my purchase I can finally test the rugged sensors on a project.
I hooked up 3 sensors with different I²C addresses together with two BMP280 sensors, a relay and the MPDMv4.1 AC Mains Dimmer.

Unfortunately I ran into a problem which I cannot quite solve...
One of the three sensors is acting weird. It gives 1 or 2 right readings but after that it reports the maximum value 655... something OR stays in the busy state and stops working. I needed to adjust my code to actually grab these scenarios as it would lead to a infinite loop if it stays in the busy state.

Any ideas on how to check where the error is?

Anyway. These sensors are just genius! Love em.
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Response from Catnip electronics | May 27, 2018
Hi,

What is the controller you are using? Some controllers act weird with regards to clock stretching and probably this is the case. Try lowering the I2C clock rate as quick and dirty solution, also research your I2C library for ways to increase the clock stretching time. There is also a bug that was solved in firmware revision 2.5 where I2C communication was waking up the sensor from ADC sleep before it finishes the conversion resulting in the wrong value being returned. This also can be mitigated by slowing down I2C clock. Please contact me directly if you still have problems, we will try to work it out!

Eric | April 1, 2018

Great product, great service

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Love the service. I'm looking forward to doing more business with this brand. Customer service was very helpful.

Henry | Nov. 8, 2017

Works great on an Arduino mkr1000

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I have 6 rugged sensors that have been reporting every hour for over a month now, I will update if any failures occur.

Frieda | Oct. 31, 2017

Amazing tech!

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

Extremely fast and safe trackable shipment, very good quality, nice documentation and amazing support!

Michel | Sept. 13, 2017

Great product

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Works perfectly, I use a Golang program to communicate with it, the provided python example was really useful.

Namik | Aug. 2, 2017

Really good and stable sensor

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I ordered the rugged version, it's really nice assembled and works stable for 1 month now. Keep the good work!

Wen-Jong | June 25, 2017

Good design and easy to integrat

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I used it for my project on soil moisture monitoring. It works fine on my module based on Arduino. The module had been in the field for over 6 months and still function. I will continue to purchase this item.

Harro | April 10, 2017

Reliably Moisture sensor

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

This soil moisture sensor is working well for month now. No corrosion, no deterioation of data quality. The incoming moisture data are noisy and need some filtering (i.e. moving average). Although in principle the total span would be from 0 to 1023, in my case, with my plant the aquired measurements are between 360 (dry) to 550 (wet). Its a desert plant, so it doesnt need a lot of water. The light sensor data need to much polishing so I am not using this part of the sensor.

Hrvoje | Feb. 28, 2017

Soil moisture

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Everything looks great. Soil moisture seems like a fantastic unit so far, we need to run more tests and calibration, but A+ for now. Would recommend.

Ekaterina | Feb. 26, 2017

Chirps as advertised!

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

It is hard to write any kind of verbose review here. The thing just works : )
I'm travelling a lot and rent my place while away. And chirp is infinitely better then bugging people about watering my plants over emails, for everyone involved.

Teodor | Nov. 19, 2016

Great product

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

Easy to use. Just pop-in a 2032 battery. Put in the soil, push the button and here you go. Plus it's smart enough to not wake you up.

Kaspars | Nov. 9, 2016

Simply great and effortless

For Chirp! - plant watering alarm

Yesterday was the second time Chirp reminded me to water the plants. I love how it chirps "Thank you!" once you've done it.

Tzu-Chiang | Sept. 14, 2016

We bought 20 and the shipping never arrived to destination.

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

We bought 20 and the shipping never arrived to destination. We sent a message to ask about the situation, and received no feedback from the provider.

update: I was contacted by the provider later, (he has replied my email at the first time, but unfortunately to the editor, not to me) . After I was contacted by the provider, we agreed to ship the products via DHL. I was only requested to cover the extra cost of shipping. I received the products yesterday and the sensors were integrated immediately with the micro-controllers without problem. Great product! Thank you for helping me to solve the shipping problem.
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Response from Catnip electronics | Sept. 14, 2016
Hello,

You did not answer my question - Did you try contacting Chile post about the package?

Marc | June 17, 2016

Great Product

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I purchased two of the sensors to use them with an ESP8266. After some troubles getting it to run with the ESP8266 they work absolutely perfect. The linked library worked out of the box with an Arduino, so it was definitely the I2C implementation of the SMING library for the ESP8266 .
The build quality is really good, so I think and hope they will do the job for a long time.
Thanks for providing that product to us.
Shipment was also really fast.

Craig | May 9, 2016

Excellent Product - Super Pleased Customer.

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I purchased 4 of these units and I will be buy more.

I am presently using them in a plant propagation misting chamber where one is embedded in potting medium to monitor soil moisture and ambient air temperature while the other is suspending in the air at the 45 degree angle and is being used as leaf wetness sensor. Although not designed as leaf wetness sensors they provide a predictably linear response ranging from about 307 for dry to about 385 for totally soaking wet. Far more cost effective than other dielectric leaf wetness sensors and way easier to interface to!

I painted the sensors with latex paint and thoroughly coated the electronics with clear plasti-dip. So far so good.

Love the I2C interface! I had it connected to a raspberry pi and reading data in just a few minutes.

Shipping to Canada was faster than expected.

I had a couple of questions regarding my "off label' use as a leaf wetness sensor and they were answered very promptly.



Sebastian | April 19, 2016

Does exactly what it is supposed to do

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

I'll be using the device to build an automatic plant watering system. My first tests were successfull and I'm looking forward to having a bunch of tomatos and peppers in the summer. Using the arduino library available at https://github.com/Apollon77/I2CSoilMoistureSensor is highly recommended.

Rene | April 7, 2016

Perfect

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

Very fast delivery, very nice device! Everything works fine for me! Nice device, thanks to the developer!

Tony | April 5, 2016

Great little sensor

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

As far as I can tell this sensor uniquely uses capacitive sensing rather than resistive so should be much more stable long term. The sensor also has temperature and light sensing which is a bonus. It is super easy to use - I got it working in 30m on a particle photon using standard i2c apis. The board is well designed and just needs some way to water proof the electronics end for which the designer gives some ideas. Shipping was fast to UK. Thanks for making this available Albertas.

Justin | Oct. 27, 2015

update to my previous review

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

After speaking to the seller directly about an issue, I wanted to update my previous review and add that the overall value of the product, price, shipping, service, is amazing!! Thank you for all the help!!

Justin | Oct. 26, 2015

great product

For I2C Soil moisture sensor

So far all of the measurements are consistent which is much better than the crap devices on amazon that were not reliable
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