The Adafruit Simple Soil Moisture Sensor is a gold-plated resistive sensor that measures conductivity between two prongs, providing easy soil moisture readings for micro:bit, Arduino, and other boards with analogue inputs.

Perfect for educationalpurposes, theAdafruitSimple Soil Moisture Sensor is a low-cost and easy-to-use device. This is a simpleresistive-style moisture sensor, featuring two prongs that measure the conductivity between them. We gold-plated the prongs to reduce the risk of oxidation – if you see build-up on the prongs, clean them off with a dish-scrubber to keep the sensor going.

While not as advanced as a capacitive or frequency-based sensor, these are easy to use! We’re stocking this sensor for folks who want to use it with a micro:bit or Arduino, or other board with an analog input. It won’t work with a Raspberry Pi because it doesn’t have analog inputs;for that, use one of our capacitive sensors.

Getting started is super easy!

• When using with a micro:bityou’ll need somesmall alligator clips.Connect the GND pad from the ‘bit to the GND pad on the sensor. Connect the 3V pad to the 3V pad. Then connect the 0 pad on the ‘bit to the OUT pad on the sensor (you can also use 1 or 2 pads on the ‘bit). Then, on the micro:bit read the analog value. When the soil is dry, the reading will be under 100. As the soil gets wetter, it will rise to 1000.
• On an Arduino,connect 3V to the 3V output pin (or 5V if there’s no 3V pin) and GND to ground. You can either use alligator clips to pinsor aJST SH to a 3-pin cable. Then connect the OUT to A0 or another analog input. When you use analogRead(), you’ll see dry soil at < 100 and wet soil > 600.

Either way, no soldering is required!

Please note: This is just the sensor; you’ll also need alligator clips or a JST-SH cable to connect to it!

Resources

• Primary Guide: Adafruit Simple Soil Moisture Sensor

Package Contents

• 1x Adafruit Simple Soil Moisture Sensor – For micro:bit, and more.