RAINPOINTDigital Compact Soil Moisture Meter for Indoor/Outdoor Plants, Soil Probe Hygrometer Sensor Tester for Garden Lawn Farm, Easy Operation House Pot Plants Lightweight Moisture Detector- 1 pc

This thing was done right out the box!! It never worked! Fresh watering of the plants and it reads 35% moisture. Are you kidding me!!!!

Big variation between same 2 gauges. No idea what’s real now. Didn’t trust the first one so I bought a second to compare. Glad I did, but now I’m totally confused. Think I’ll buy something else.

cheap

This sensor worked well in commercial potting mix. I would get a reading of 95% after heavy irrigation, then allow the soil to drain for about 1 hour (maximum water holding capacity). The percentage would gradually decline with drying as expected. After a several wetting and drying cycles I learned what reading was best to irrigate in order to avoid plant water stress. Also handy to make sure you are wetting the entire soil profile. Note that the calibration of these capacitance-type sensors is very soil-specific, so you will need to adjust your interpretation of the readings for each soil type. They seem to be calibrated for potting mix. Also, they are very sensitive to soil-sensor contact. Make sure the soil is pressed firmly against the sides of the sensor. Seems like a good tool for about $10 each. It would be nice to have one with an e-paper display that could continually show the results without draining the battery. Then you could just leave the sensor in the pot and not have to press the button every time you wanted to check - you could just glance at the sensor when nearby.

easy to use, used in a very dry plant, seems more accurate than analog type.