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Wasted $80 on a fancy moisture meter for my houseplants...
I got real into my indoor plants over the summer, had like 30 of them on my windowsill. Saw this digital moisture meter online for 80 bucks, said it could measure ph and light too, which sounded perfect. But it just gives random numbers no matter where I stick it, wet soil dry soil it says the same thing around 4.5. My peace lily started wilting cause I trusted the meter instead of just sticking my finger in the dirt like my grandma always told me. Lost that peace lily and felt like a fool, could have bought 4 more plants with that money. Now I just use the old finger test and my plants are doing way better. Anyone else fall for those gadget traps or is it just me?
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hannahw301mo ago
Okay but is it possible that the meter just needed calibration or you got a dud? Because I have one of those combo meters too and yeah they're not perfect but mine gives me a ballpark that's way better than my finger. Like with my ferns I can never tell if the middle of the pot is still wet but the meter at least tells me 3 vs 6 which is a big difference. And @the_cole is right that electrical conductivity gets thrown off by salts but if you water with filtered water like I do it's way more consistent. My peace lily is thriving with the meter and I haven't lost a plant since I started using it. Maybe give it another try with some distilled water first to reset the sensor?
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the_cole1mo ago
my peace lily started wilting cause I trusted the meter instead of just sticking my finger in the dirt" - that part really got me because I did the exact same thing with my first peace lily. Those cheap moisture probes aren't just inaccurate sometimes, they're actually known to be completely useless for most houseplants since they measure electrical conductivity and can't tell the difference between wet soil and just really compacted dry soil with salts in it. The pH and light sensors on those combo meters are even worse, like measuring light in foot candles from a sensor that's meant for soil? It doesn't make sense when you think about it. Sorry about your peace lily though, I know that heartbreak of watching a plant go down because of bad advice from a piece of plastic.
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