Solar-Powered Rain Sensor

Compatible devices
1

Hi all,
I’m trying to connect this nice solar-powered RF rain sensor to Home Assistant:

rainSensorImage1

I bought it on AliExpress. More details here: https://aliexpress.com/item/1005004280078957.html

The seller wrote to me that it’s 433mhz and compatible with other A-OK devices. Probably like this device: https://www.a-okmotor.com/rf-hand-set-remotes_p72.html

I believe that the device is functioning because the LED on the back side blinks whenever it senses moisture or when the Paring button is pressed. But I see nothing about it appearing on my Mosquitto MQTT broker.

Can anyone assist and advise?

I’m using LILYGO® LoRa32 V2.1_1.6.1 433 Mhz with the lilygo-rtl_433 firmware v1.6.0.

Thank you!

2

Welcome @maor,

Could it be that the device does not have the rtl_433 protocol, but one of the other 433MHz protocols like RF, RF2 or Pilight, and that is what the seller meant?

Unfortunately, with your LilyGo board you can only run rtl_433, or alternatively BLE for bluetooth devices.

Have a look at the RF set up page for further information about possibly alternative 433MHz parts and protocols

3

Thank you @DigiH .

As a new user of OMG, I am having trouble understanding which options would be best for me. Are the ESP32+CC1101 and SONOFF RF Bridge the most suitable options for me? Do they both support most modules and protocols including RTL_433, RF, RF2, and Pilight?

4

My favourite set up for a general RF gateway is an ESP8266 or ESP32 with SRX882 receiver and STX882 transmitter modules, as they usually have a better range than a CC1101.

If any of the then possible protocols, RF, RF2 and Pilight will result in successfully receiving the rain sensor transmissions I really don’t know, as even for the mentioned A-OK protocol I haven’t really found any useful information yet.

So it could also possibly still be the rtl_433 protocol, but without any implemented decoder for this particular device, but if you are willing to test the other protocols the above mentioned ESP8266/ESP32/SRX882 combo is the best way to go.

1 Like