A monitoring tool to read Xiaomi Mi Flora sensors and to send notifications via Telegram if readings are out of configured boundaries.
As the official Xiaomi app doesn't always meet our expectation, this tool can help to look after your plant if you have a spare home server (or whatsoever with docker inside) with Bluetooth.
| Parameter | alias |
|---|---|
| Soil moisture | moisture |
| Light intensity | light |
| Soil fertility | conductivity |
| Temperature | temperature |
| Battery charge | battery |
Follow instructions here: https://core.telegram.org/bots#3-how-do-i-create-a-bot
A bot token will be used for configuration later.
Then you need to add the bot to a telegram channel and get a channel id. The easiest way to know what is the channel id is to check bot's status updates:
https://api.telegram.org/bot<BotToken>/getUpdates
Look at the response json. The channel id will be in "id" field of the "chat" object.
docker build -t plantcare .
The full configuration json is as follows:
{
"loglevel": "INFO",
"telegram": {
"token": "3059511111:ZZZZ-ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-AAAAAAA",
"channel": "-321012345",
"message": {
"parse_mode": "MarkdownV2",
"moisture": "*{plant}*\nMoisture is out of the boundaries*: {boundaries}\n*Current value*: {value}",
"light": "*{plant}*\nLight is out of the boundaries*: {boundaries}\n*Current value*: {value}",
"temperature": "*{plant}*\nTemperature is out of the boundaries*: {boundaries}\n*Current value*: {value}",
"battery": "*{plant}*\nBattery level is out of the boundaries*: {boundaries}\n*Current value*: {value}",
"conductivity": "*{plant}*\nFertility is out of the boundaries*: {boundaries}\n*Current value*: {value}"
}
},
"adapter": "hci0",
"max_attempts": 5,
"sensors": {
"Rose": {
"mac": "10:EA:BA:58:10:B8",
"wellbeing_range": {
"moisture": {
"min": 40,
"max": 50
},
"conductivity": {
"min": 19
}
}
}
}
}
Where wellbeing_range in the sensors section can have boundaries for multiple parameters.
loglevel (optional, default is "INFO")
Logging level for docker log output.
telegram : token (required)
Telegram bot token
telegram : channel (required)
Telegram channel id
telegram : message : parse_mode (optional, default is "MarkdownV2")
See https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#formatting-options
telegram : message : {moisture|light|battery|temperature|conductivity} (optional, defaults is "{plant}: 'PARAM' parameter is out of boundaries '{boundaries}'")
Notification templates for messages sent via telegram in case of readings are out of configured boundaries. You can overwrite none, one, or all of them in your config json.
A message template for a parameter (moisture, light, battery, temperature, or conductivity) may contain the following template placeholders:
{plant}- a plant name (seesensorsbellow){boundaries}- configured boundaries for the sensor parameter. Depending on awellbeing_rangeconfiguration (seesensorsbellow), it can be[min, max](if bothminandmaxare configured), or≥ min, or≤ max){value}- a parameter value
A template formatting should follow Telegram formatting rules for a chosen parse_mode: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#formatting-options
Don't forget escaping.
adapter (optional, default is "hci0")
In most cases the adapter name is "hci0". You can check it (or what other adapters you have in your system) by running this command:
docker run --rm plantcare ls /sys/class/bluetooth/
max_attempts (optional, default is 5) How many times it will try to connect to and to read from each sensor before giving up.
sensor (required)
A collection of objects where keys are sensors'/plants' names. They will be used for the {pant} placeholder in the message templates.
sensor : {plant} : mac (required)
Sensor's mac address. Run this command to see all bluetooth devices nearby (make sure you are close enough to the sensor):
docker run --net=host --privileged -it --rm plantcare blescan -a
And see device(s) which has "Complete Local Name: 'Flower care'" in the output.
sensor : {plant} : wellbeing_range (required)
A collection of objects where keys are parameter aliases (see above) and values are intervals. Intervals can have both min and max, or only one min/max. A notification regarding a parameter will not be sent while the parameter value is within wellbeing_range.
A minimal configuration json can be like this:
{
"telegram": {
"token": "3059511111:ZZZZ-ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-AAAAAAA",
"channel": "-321012345",
"message": {
"moisture": "*{plant}* need to be watered"
}
},
"sensors": {
"Rose": {
"mac": "10:EA:BA:58:10:B8",
"wellbeing_range": {
"moisture": {
"min": 40
}
}
}
}
}
CONFIG environment variable should be passed with the configuration json (using --env or --env-file).
docker run --net host --rm --env CONFIG='{"telegram":{"token":"3059511111:ZZZZ-ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-AAAAAAA","channel":"-321012345","message":{"moisture":"*{plant}* need to be watered"}},"sensors":{"Rose":{"mac":"10:EA:BA:58:10:B8","wellbeing_range":{"moisture":{"min":40}}}}}' plantcare
PlantCare app doesn't work in a daemon mode. However you can schedule periodical checks by crontab or willfarrell/crontab
If you see a connection error in logs, there are many possible reasons besides a typo in the config:
- your Bluetooth device is down
- LE capabilities are not enabled on your Bluetooth device
- both above
- something else
Check it on the host:
sudo hciconfig
The device you want to connect should have "UP RUNNING" status. If not run it:
sudo hciconfig hci0 up
If the device is up and running, but still can't connect to a sensor, try to enable LE:
sudo btmgmt le on
Remember to do so after reboot. Alternatively, you can do the same in small docker image
FROM alpine:3.12
RUN apk add --no-cache bluez-deprecated bluez-btmgmt
COPY your_script.sh /usr/src/scripts
CMD [ "ash", "your_script.sh" ]
And run it (with --net=host --privileged) in one docker-compose bundle with PlantCare.