As I had both the Parrot and the el-cheapo ones for a while now, but holidays and not being here to actually play/look at them kept me from actually 'reviewing them', here is a little summary:
Parrot:
+ measures: water level, fertiliser, temperature, sunlight
+ add water and the sensor directly notices this and informs the base, hence sensors in the toys work pretty good
+ In-app database is very extensive (probably the best thing about the app actually)
- The app requires a connection to the Parrot "cloud" to calculate your data - requires internet connectivity (turn it off in your celldata, it does not need to talk to them everywhere you go etc)
+ Can avoid the cloud with for instance:
https://github.com/sandeepmistry/node-flower-power
and thus just read it from your Linux box etc. This does mean you don't get to use the nice App though and thus the DB.
(I still have to integrate that into my monitoring system)
- BlueTooth LE (Low Energy) which is not 'real' bluetooth, and is quite short range; hence have to be close to it (~4 meters) to be able to get the readings onto your iThing (or Linux box with BLE)
- with app: need to look at app once in a while or allow it to notify you (and thus suck up battery, and have bluetooth turned on, which I refuse due to security issues with that, hence turning it on once in a while, and thus forgetting about the app)
+ without app, thus using node-flower-power + integration in your system: pretty great as then you get central notifications, no need to turn on bluetooth on your iThing etc.
? I did not test it outside, thus no idea if it would survive snow; I can easily believe it survives rain though.
+ due to Bluetooth LE near unlimited sensors as the address space is very big (only tested one though, will likely get a few more later though)
El-Cheapo:
+ measures: soil temp, air temp, soil humidity
- does not measure: sunlight, fertiliser
- does not work with RFXCom at the moment (I'll contact them about this, should be possible in theory, will send them a few sensors if they want to check it out; I have not been able to see any output from the rfxcom related to it, but did not look too closely)
+ range is great, have the base in the livingroom and it sees the sensors 15m away through concrete walls and an elevator
+ add water and the sensor directly notices this and informs the base, hence sensors in the toys work pretty good
+ sensors work in and outside, even in rain and snow (and we got -14 C and ~50cm of snow here a few weeks ago and they survived)
+ base has watering alarms, which can be deactivated between 22:00 - 07:00 to avoid waking you from sleep.
+ base can be put in 'cycle' mode to see all sensor's measurements (water level
+ base has overview of all sensor's waterlevels
- up to 5 sensors only (we got quite a few more plants than that
)
- only 5 humidity levels: dry, sorta wet, kinda wet, wet, very wet (more might be hidden in the device data though)
From putting both devices next to each other the measurements where mostly the same (very small differences). Of course the El-cheapo does not see fertiliser.
The Parrot is effectively also a good UV/sunlight sensor (unlike the Oregons which report little variations), which is a nice thing, as in combo with the node-flower-power you can use this to trigger your lights on/off
Hence, the combination of them is pretty good: you apply the Parrot to a plant for a while to see what makes the plant happy, add an el-cheapo monitor too to compare the results; when you know the water levels that that plant likes and the amount of sunlight etc.
Lady-happyness-factor with these toys: high.
Which is a good thing too