Soil Moisture Sensor

[jamsoft]

Great integration but I cannot get soil moisture configured.

I'm using a Zigbee ThirdReality Gen2 sensor. I was following this great video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3oOgCFjSY8

The problem is in the device, the soil moisture sensor doesn't show. This also happens in the video. So he then goes to the developer tools to do a replace. But the problem seems that the sensor isn't enabled in the device, so it doesn't even show up as a sensor to replace.

I've tried enabling it on the device but it only momentarily shows up on the device and then is immediately disabled again. So I'm at a complete loss as to how to get the key sensor for the whole integration working.

Any ideas or pointers would be appreciated.

[jamsoft]

Just to confirm. I have tried enabling the soil moisture entity, but it just will not stay enabled. None of the replace method work. So it's all kinda screwed up for me at the moment. I don't know if it's a HA issue, the plant integration or the way the ThirdReality Gen2 monitor works.

I'm seeing this in the logs:

Logger: custom_components.plant
Source: custom_components/plant/__init__.py:256
integration: Plant Monitor ([documentation](https://github.com/Olen/homeassistant-plant/), [issues](https://github.com/Olen/homeassistant-plant/issues))
First occurred: 19:38:51 (1 occurrence)
Last logged: 19:38:51
Meter entity sensor.aloe_vera_soil_moisture not found

And:

Logger: custom_components.plant
Source: custom_components/plant/__init__.py:1024
integration: Plant Monitor ([documentation](https://github.com/Olen/homeassistant-plant/), [issues](https://github.com/Olen/homeassistant-plant/issues))
First occurred: 19:38:21 (18 occurrences)
Last logged: 20:04:52

    Threshold entity has non-numeric state (min=number.aloe_vera_min_temperature [8], max=number.aloe_vera_max_temperature [unavailable]) — skipping check
    Threshold entity has non-numeric state (min=number.chinese_money_plant_min_temperature [unavailable], max=number.chinese_money_plant_max_temperature [32]) — skipping check

Hope it helps.

[jamsoft]

Kinda related to this sensor issue. I have one plant like this:

And another like this:

Both using the same ThirdReality devices but on one, the soil temperature sensor also refuses to be activated.

I've also reclassified two sensors as moisture, using:

# In customize.yaml
sensor.zigbee_aloe_vera_soil_moisture:
  device_class: moisture

sensor.zigbee_chinese_money_plant_soil_moisture:
  device_class: moisture

I'm really not having a lot of luck with these integrations. I might try recreating these plant devices after reclassing these two sensors and see how that goes.

[jamsoft]

OK, finally got it working. Retroactively trying to fix things just did not work. Steps for anyone else facing this issue.

1. Delete existing plant devices
2. Ensure moisture sensors have the proper device classes using the customize.yaml snippet below (replace sensors with your entities)
3. Restart HA (I did a full reboot)
4. Recreate plant devices and make sure soil moisture is set right from the start
5. Add cards to dashboard

Include customisations to set the correct classes on sensors by adding to or creating a customize.yaml in the same directory as the main configuration.yaml file

# In customize.yaml
sensor.zigbee_aloe_vera_soil_moisture:
  device_class: moisture

sensor.zigbee_chinese_money_plant_soil_moisture:
  device_class: moisture

in configuration.yaml with:

homeassistant: 
  customize: !include customize.yaml

It seems there is an issue enabling the soil moisture sensor if it is not set right at the start of the device creation. Which means it's disabled and more importantly, won't enable later on. Meaning it's permanently unavailable to update using any other processes, such as the plant.replace sensor action.

[Olen]

Fix submitted in #382.

Root cause: The setup-time disable loop (update_entity_disabled_state) ran on every config entry reload and unconditionally re-disabled entities without sensors — overriding any manual enable the user did in the UI.

Fix: Replaced the loop with HA's entity_registry_enabled_default mechanism, which only applies on first entity registration. Existing registry state is preserved across reloads. Also fixed the replace_sensor service to work on disabled entities, so users can assign sensors via YAML automations without needing to enable entities first.

[jamsoft]

Excellent! Thanks! I'll close this one out.