SparkFun Capacitive Soil Moisture Sensor (SEN-13322)
Overview
The SEN-13322 is a small capacitive soil moisture breakout from SparkFun that provides an analog moisture-related signal for rapid prototyping with microcontrollers. It is designed to be inexpensive and easy to wire to a microcontroller analog input. The board exposes a simple analog interface so you can read relative moisture levels and implement your own calibration or thresholds.
Why Choose This Part
Because it is a capacitive sensor, it reads moisture without passing DC current through the soil, which reduces the common corrosion issues seen with simple resistive probes and generally improves longevity. The analog output and simple breakout form factor make it trivial to wire to most microcontroller ADC inputs for fast integration during prototyping. Its low cost and hobbyist-friendly design make it a practical choice for demos, education, and DIY projects.
Applications
Key Specifications
Getting Started
Common ways to use this board are to connect Vcc and GND to your microcontroller and read the sensor output from an analog input pin. Typical development platforms include Arduino and ESP32 (use the Arduino IDE or PlatformIO) or a Raspberry Pi with an external ADC. Read raw ADC values, then map or calibrate them to wet/dry thresholds for your application; add simple averaging or filtering to reduce noise.
