Is there any plans on introducing wireless soil sensors that would directly work and connect to the controller?
I’d like to see this as well. It’s particularly useful for us in Arizona, as the moisture retention in the soil varies dramatically throughout the year. My system is integrated with the Tempest weather station and does an outstanding job of rain skips; however it resumes watering too early, while the soil is still saturated from the rain. This forces a manual intervention when a soil moisture sensor network could make it fully automatic. Moisture sensor integration could also solve the seasonal watering (re)schedule headache for us here in the desert.
There are several third party sensors available today. Perhaps some may work?
@pknoot Any sensors in particular? We have yet to find any that are cost effective AND accurate.
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I haven’t tried any, since they tend to be specific to certain controllers. I like the idea of a unit that senses at multiple depths, like the Moen. I have no idea if it really works well.
I do know that the cheap handheld probes can be very tricky. However I suspect that if the controller polls every sensor multiple times to average out erratic readings it could work. Also if there are multiple sensors across the yard there could be an opportunity to apply some intelligence to the data.
As for cost, I’d be willing to pay $50-$60 each, because I see the ROI being very high in my situation. I would likely want 6-10 of them.
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Any news on this? I’m researching Ecowitt currently 
I’d like something even a bit lower ($29-$39) but have not found in this price range with the accuracy.
I do believe we have a great platform to build a closed loop system with the right sensor.
Please let me know the results!
I would be very interested at this as well.
I am currently using three Ecowitt sensors ($22 on amazon) to monitor my newly laid sod. You need to do calibration using the gateway’s internal website. Place the sensor in dry soil and mark that as 0% AD, then place the sensor in soil and water it until water puddles and AD value no longer increases. My zone 10b south florida sand over loam soil came out at 100-330 range. With that out of the way, it shows soil moisture reaching about 80% while watering, then slowly drops towards 50% as the soil starts to dry. New sod, so watering is very intense. At least 1” a day with 0.4” of rain for the last 4 weeks 
To be honest, I’d love to see something like Moen’s sensors - they measure moisture at three different depths, I believe 1”, 3”, and 5”. Unfortunately, I don’t think they work outside of their own sprinkler controller.
@franz is there anything that Rachio can implement over WiFi that can work directly with our controllers? Do we have Bluetooth radio built in? How was the wireless meter communication with the controller?
Eccowit looks ok but they are not consoled like Moen that means you have to remove them every single time you cut your grass. We need something that is just installed and is there until you have to replace battery’s.
We need good wireless solution I think most people that want them will pay for them. I still want wireless meter back.
I have never read any mention of BT/BLE on the Rachio controller, besides, you have a radio issue with anything almost buried into the grass. Bluetooth is probably not the right technology as it will not allow for far enough placement. Something z-wave or around the 433-866MHz spectrum. Another problem here is the divergence between US and Europe/others on available spectrum at sub-gigahertz frequencies (lower frequencies go farther) meaning sensors and controllers may need to be country specific, a logistics problem. BT 5.0 promises longer range, but still uses the 2.4GHz, also shared by wifi and Zigbee.
I do want the likes of Moen sensors though, the ability of multiple depth measurement seems awesome. Have you been able to use any, without their controller?
I have Rachio and the Ecowitt sensors connected to Hubitat, so I can technically turn on a zone if it becomes too dry, but I really don’t want to bypass the Rachio logic, a sensor baked into Rachio directly would be phenomenal 
LE: according to Ecowitt, their WH51 sensor uses 915MHz in the US, 868MHz in Europe, and 433MHz elsewhere.
I cannot find any info on the Moen one, searching FCC…
Well How does the water meter from rachio communicated with the controller? Maybe use same technology?
Given that v3 controllers built after Nov ‘21 can no longer work with the WFM, I would venture to guess that whatever radio that was, was unfortunately removed from the board…
How can we get official answer here ?
Not with the current Gen 3 controller.
The wireless meter was a great product! Too much friction to install and some other issues.
We continue to look at interesting ecosystems to allow devices like these to communicate in the yard 
It was LoRa, and that is correct.
What about this. If we get good wifi moisture sensors that gas its own platform and we get rachio to pull info through integration between devices and use that info to report.
I’m with you, @pknoot, I’m fine with accurate (enough) with a higher price point given the climbing price of water. @franz have you found ones that are more accurate than others?
@franz Sensors are the missing link in creating the necessary ground truth for training the system on actuals rather than relying on estimates. Accuracy is certainly a big issue (garbage in, garbage out).
As @pknoot alluded to, given an initial on site calibration, maintaining accuracy is a matter of time series analysis and spatiotemporal analysis across sensors. The predictive regression model would take weather and flow meter data as input and sensor data as output. The perfect sensor would have 3 or more independent readings per device. 3 spikes would give 3 whereas 4 would give 5 assuming each pair could be electrical isolated. Spikes at different heights would be even better.
We’d be alerted to sensors that are out of distribution with regards to the prediction model. Mitigation would be ensuring the sensor is still calibrated and working properly (against ground truth [1] and/or a hand-held moisture meter) or making sure the sensor is properly seated to take accurate measurements.
At any rate, that’s how I’d build it.
[1] Soil samples (provided or local samples measured by volume or weight) with different moisture levels determined by volume.
Not yet!