by emeryth (emeryth at hackerspace.pl)

This is a teardown and analysis of the Xiaomi flower/plant monitor (it doesn't seem to have an official name). It is not extremely in-depth because the main goal was to figure out how to use the device without the official app.

Xiaomi Flora is a Bluetooth Low Energy device that monitors the environment of a plant.

It measures:

• Sunlight intensity
• Air temperature
• Soil moisture
• Soil fertility (via electrical conductivity)

The device is sealed well, with lots of gaskets and even manually applied conformal coating on chips. The plastic shell is fused together, so you must use a knife to take it apart.

• U1 - Dialog Semiconductor DA14580 SoC with BLE http://www.dialog-semiconductor.com/products/connectivity/bluetooth-low-energy/smartbond-da14580
• U2 - Unknown SOT353 chip, probably some kind of op-amp or other analog thing for the sensors
• U5 - Unknown SON8 chip marked “5F1 A61 J1C 1”, could be EEPROM/flash

The light and temperature sensors are placed on the top of the device.

The legs end with metal studs that are used to measure soil fertility via electrical conductance. Hidden inside the legs are two traces that end in plates, probably a capacitive method to measure soil moisture.