PlantLink is shipping!

@samsoso Is there a possibility of just ordering the links without the hub since it sounds like SmartThings can work as the hub on it’s own?

I got a reply on twitter and you can order just the Links here. https://www.trycelery.com/shop/additional-links

…but I suspect you need a PlantLink account for all of this to work (I understand they’ll be interpreting the data from the sensors). You currently need a PlantLink hub serial number to accomplish that.

Cheers, Jonathan

@badgermanus good point but hopefully once the SmartThings integration is ready that process will change. Either that or I guess I’ll end up buying a hub anyway.

You might be able to buy a license for less than the price of the Hub. No idea for sure of course, but they are actively working with SmartThings to make this happen so I’m sure they are aware that some people might want to by pass the hub part all together.

I contacted OSO regarding the need of a basestation serial number in order to sign up for their dashboard. They confirmed that one the SmartThings integration is ready, a serial number will no longer be required if you use your ST hub.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t give a time frame on the integration being ready but I figured it was good news that you don’t have to buy a hub that isn’t needed for ST users.

Edit, deleted. Found the more recent thread Next few weeks might be interesting

I saw this post and was wondering if anyone had seen or heard of eve?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/208981761/eve-smart-home-meet-your-smart-yard?ref=nav_search

its just starting on kickstarter but it comes integrated into smartthings…any thoughts on whether or not to wait or DIY your own smartthings sprinkler controller?

Yup… I’m backing that project. It’s off to a good start… almost $15K already. But still has a ways to go to get to the $75K goal.

Honestly, I’ve been disappointed by the PlantLink. The links themselves work well enough, but it looks like the company is struggles and might be going under. The cancelled the valve production (which I REALLY wanted). They offered valve backers the choice of $50 refund or two links saying that there were plans for very tight integration with SmartThings.

Everything I read seemed to indicate that the links would be paired with the ST Hub (meaning one less hub in my house + not having to rely on a potentially bankrupt company). So I opted for the links. However, now it looks like it’s just going to be a cloud-to-cloud based link… which disappoints me.

Additionally I appear to have two links that have already gone dead battery-wise (at least I HOPE it’s the batteries!). I’ve got SmartThings sensors that I’ve used for well over a year on the original two AAAA batteries that are still going strong. But it looks like two AAAA batteries couldn’t even get the links through three months of summer.

This will be great when Orbit Sprinkler is finally supported!

I just received my Plantlinks w/o base. Looking forward to the integration!

Anyone else have luck with PlantLink integration?

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Yes - with Oso unresponsive and not particularly functioning, getting this running with SmartThings would be fantastic. Much better than having the white tubes in my plants purely decorative. :slight_smile:

Supposedly OSO submitted a SmartApp for approval to SmartThings, but that was over a month ago I believe.

The bigger problem seems to be that OSO planned for cloud-to-cloud communication, rather than have the Links talk directly to the ST hub. This of course means that without the PlantLink website running it becomes useless.

It’s too bad… it seemed like a decent enough product, but just didn’t pan out. Unless someone can figure out a way to get the links to talk right to the ST hub, I think this is going to be a complete fail.

Oh, man - I see, yeah just read through more of this thread. I guess the links were planned to connect to the smartthings hub, but the actual watering recommendations requires plant link’s APIs to be running. Argh.

I sent a message to the creator on both KickStarter and his Blog email address. We’ll see if I hear anything… not holding my breath. I suspect it’s a dead project at this point.

I know the links can pair directly with ST. The problem is that right now ST doesn’t know what to do with it. It just shows up as an unknown Zigbee device. If nothing else I might try to get some info from the creator about what sort of info the link is sending to the hub so I can reverse engineer a device type for it. Right now this is WAY beyond my meager abilities but it might be a fun project to try sometime.

After that a SmartApp that would install for each link and manually input the moisture threshold would be pretty easy to do. Finding what moisture content would be needed for each plant would be harder…

Plantlink is dead. They are selling off there algorithms last I heard.

Where did you hear that? I’ve assumed it was or will shortly be dead for a while now, but I never saw any news (rumor or otherwise) about it. Just the news from OSO itself, many, many weeks ago.

The fact that no refunds and/or links have been sent to backs is pretty, along with zero communication from the developers in months is pretty solid proof that it’s dying/dead in and of itself. But I’m curious what and where you heard/saw anything.

See below. :smile:


Received this from them today.
Oso Admin (Oso Technologies)
Feb 17, 11:15

Hi Bruno,

We just went over the new UIUX for Android last week actually. It will come out around the same time as the valve because it’s incorporating UI changes for the valve into it. Both are scheduled for mid 2016. We’re really excited about our next generation of products, and trying to make them as awesome as possible.

Have a great day!
Virginia