Hi, there's a dream I've always found lovely, those fine, modular, customized modular sensors combined with a center, and here, for the time being, we'd like HA to be that center, with the help of its open, high-freedom spirit.
This is one of the pieces of the puzzle, it's a temperature and humidity sensor, although there are enough of them on the market, we wanted to make a sensor with a separate probe, high real-time, no worries about batteries, and tightly integrated with HA.
It looks a lot like a water level sensor (as of now it's a WS2-4 probe non-contact water level sensor), and consists of the probe and USB power cable through a controller. The controller part, we made it as small as possible, and consistently monolithic (no screws, snap-on design). For the probe, we went with the SHT3 series, a miniature temperature and humidity sensor chip from a Swiss company, which connects a black probe wire through a nice package. This can bring some additional benefits, unlike temperature and humidity sensors with a screen (such as Xiaomi's thermo-hygrometer series), this sensor is more suitable for measuring the temperature of a specific object, for example, we want to leave the probe in the refrigerator when testing, so that we can monitor the temperature of the freezer, the storage room. A thermohygrometer with a screen would have to take into account the effect of water vapor on the battery and controller as well as signal shielding, making the probe ideal for specific tasks.
We can think of clever opportunities to place it somewhere on a bed sheet to detect the real-time temperature of the bed. It could also be used in cat kennels, dog kennels, etc. to observe the temperature and humidity in their environment in real time.
A high-precision probe, real-time WIFI connectivity, USB power, and HomeAssistant native integration make up the main features of this external temperature and humidity sensor.
NEWS
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Disadvantages
Despite this looks wonderful, it has to be admitted that it has some of the disadvantages of this design background:
- The probe is sealed and the sensitivity of the humidity is slightly affected: in our tests, the humidity reacts a little slower, compared to the skeletonized Xiaomi Thermo-Hygrometer. But it still shows changes in temperature and humidity, which is nothing to worry about.
- USB power required: the device's controller is powered by TYPE-C, which means it will have a tail, and you'll need to deal with that tail by arranging a USB adapter. We adapted a 1M long cable with the unit, and for those longer needs, we have optional cable solutions up to 5m long.
Feature Description
- Power supply: 5V USB-C powered
- Probe Length: 1m
- Temperature Accuracy: Typically within ±0.2°C. Humidity Accuracy: Typically within ±2%RH.
- Humidity Accuracy: Typically within ±2%RH.
- Temperature Range: Generally from -40°C to 125°C. Humidity Range: Generally from 0.5°C to 0.5°C.
- Humidity Range: Generally from 0 to 100%RH.
User's Guide
Hardware Connection
Plug one end of the controller into the USB cable and give the USB cable access to the power adapter. Complete the hardware connection.
Connecting HA
After the power is turned on, you can see a hotspot, add the device to HA automatically according to the general method of adding ESPHome devices (Join Connection).
If this pairing method encounters difficulties, you can refer to the advanced method of pairing using a data cable (only when the general method doesn't work well)
Automation
If needed, you can use the properties of the device to do some automation, here are some examples:
- Start the electric blanket when the temperature is below 20 degrees and turn it off when the temperature is above 30 degrees.
- Show an alert icon when the temperature of the cat's litter is below 10 degrees and the litter temperature is low.
- When the bed temperature is too low, alert the bed temperature is too low.
Application
We don't have a lot of test subjects, and we're looking forward to exploring all the different uses you can make of them. Among them we tested some basic scenarios:
- Refrigerator internal temperature monitoring: By placing the probe inside the refrigerator, the probe wire cleverly passes through the soft sealing strip of the refrigerator to avoid affecting the sealing, the temperature and humidity of the refrigerator will be real-time can be transmitted to HA.
- Cat Litter Temperature and Humidity Monitoring: In the winter when it is too cold, we will heat the cat with a pet electric blanket, at this time, being able to know the actual temperature of the cat litter can give us some basic information if we need it.
- Bedroom Electric Blanket Temperature: In winter we will use the electric blanket to preheat the comforter in advance, and with the temperature and humidity probe, we know how the temperature of the comforter is at this time.
