Getting Xiaomi Mi Flora plant sensors working on HASSio

Xiaomi has a great line of pretty high quality but very inexpensive hardware that you can use in your smart home.  Right now I’m using their plant, door, water, and temperature sensors, as well as their curtain motors.  These plant sensors seem to be the only Xiaomi sensor that I have that is not ZigBee.  So recently, I got another Raspberry Pi (3B+) to be able to pull in my Mi Flora plant sensors from my living room.  There are a ton of tutorials on how to get HASSio loaded on an SD card, so I’ll assume you have Home Assistant up and running.

Here are the steps I used to get my sensors displaying in Home Assistant via the MiFlora component.

1. If you installed the “SSH server” add-on from the built-in add-on, then remove that one first.
2. Install the “SSH & Web Terminal” add-on.
   This is in the Official add-ons repository.
3. Configure the username and password/authorized_keys options.
   Use a complex password here as it checks against Have I Been Pwned database.
4. Activate ssl on the Web Terminal if you use it.
   If you use this, make sure you have valid keys that you are pointing to.
5. Start the “SSH & Web Terminal” add-on.
6. Check the logs of the “SSH & Web Terminal” add-on to see if everything went well.
7. Open the Web Terminal.  
   https://hassio.local:7681/ if you have not changed anything from default settings.
8. Reboot the host.
9. Once rebooted, open the Web Terminal.
10. Type bluetoothctl to enter the bluetooth controller and then scan on to begin the scanning.
    You will begin to see the list of devices appearing on the scanner.
    
    YAML

    ➜ ~ bluetoothctl Agent registered [bluetooth]# scan on Discovery started [CHG] Controller B8:27:EB:Q7:X0:36 Discovering: yes [NEW] Device C4:7C... [NEW] Device C4:7C:8D:67:2E:99 Flower care [NEW] Device 3E:8A... [NEW] Device D8:0F... [NEW] Device C4:7C:8D:67:2D:91 Flower care [NEW] Device 50:32...

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    ➜ ~ bluetoothctl Agent registered [bluetooth]# scan on Discovery started [CHG] Controller B8:27:EB:Q7:X0:36 Discovering: yes [NEW] Device C4:7C... [NEW] Device C4:7C:8D:67:2E:99 Flower care [NEW] Device 3E:8A... [NEW] Device D8:0F... [NEW] Device C4:7C:8D:67:2D:91 Flower care [NEW] Device 50:32...

11. Now you have everything you need to add the sensors to your config.
12. Edit you configuration.yaml file and add the following:
    
    YAML

    sensor: - platform: miflora mac: 'C4:7C:8D:67:2D:91' name: Ficus Elastica - Right force_update: false scan_interval: 1800 # median: 3 monitored_conditions: - moisture - light - temperature - conductivity - battery - platform: miflora mac: 'C4:7C:8D:67:2E:99' name: Schefflera Actinophylla - Left force_update: false scan_interval: 1800 # median: 3 monitored_conditions: - moisture - light - temperature - conductivity - battery

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    sensor:   - platform: miflora     mac: 'C4:7C:8D:67:2D:91'     name: Ficus Elastica - Right     force_update: false     scan_interval: 1800     # median: 3     monitored_conditions:       - moisture       - light       - temperature       - conductivity       - battery     - platform: miflora     mac: 'C4:7C:8D:67:2E:99'     name: Schefflera Actinophylla - Left     force_update: false     scan_interval: 1800     # median: 3     monitored_conditions:       - moisture       - light       - temperature       - conductivity       - battery

13. Restart your Home Assistant instance and you should get the sensors to appear.
14. To add them to the UI, I added the following to my lovelace config file:
    
    YAML

    views: - title: Living Room RPi cards: - type: entities entities: - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_moisture name: Moisture - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_light_intensity name: Light Intensity - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_conductivity name: Conductivity - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_temperature name: Temperature - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_battery name: Battery title: Right Ficus Elastica Plant show_header_toggle: false - type: entities entities: - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_moisture name: Moisture - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_light_intensity name: Light Intensity - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_conductivity name: Conductivity - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_temperature name: Temperature - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_battery name: Battery title: Left Schefflera Actinophylla Plant show_header_toggle: false

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    views:   - title: Living Room RPi     cards:       - type: entities         entities:           - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_moisture             name: Moisture           - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_light_intensity             name: Light Intensity           - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_conductivity             name: Conductivity           - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_temperature             name: Temperature           - entity: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_battery             name: Battery         title: Right Ficus Elastica Plant         show_header_toggle: false       - type: entities         entities:           - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_moisture             name: Moisture           - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_light_intensity             name: Light Intensity           - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_conductivity             name: Conductivity           - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_temperature             name: Temperature           - entity: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_battery             name: Battery         title: Left Schefflera Actinophylla Plant         show_header_toggle: false

    
    
15. To make sure I don’t forget about the plants, I’ve added an automation to remind me when it’s time to water my plants:
    
    YAML

    - alias: Plant Notification trigger: - entity_id: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_moisture platform: numeric_state below: '20' - entity_id: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_moisture platform: numeric_state below: '20' action: - service: persistent_notification.create data: message: Water the plants! title: Plants needs some TLC!

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    - alias: Plant Notification   trigger:   - entity_id: sensor.ficus_elastica_right_moisture     platform: numeric_state     below: '20'   - entity_id: sensor.schefflera_actinophylla_left_moisture     platform: numeric_state     below: '20'   action:   - service: persistent_notification.create     data:       message: Water the plants!       title: Plants needs some TLC!