Continuous temperature/humidity monitor recommendations?
 

Hello, all! I'm definitely new to the orchid community here, but am in love with my birthday plants! Trouble is: caring for them. I worry the temperature and humidity here may not be appropriate for them and am looking at perhaps purchasing a continuous temp/humidity monitor if such a thing is available in order to help with identifying a more appropriate watering schedule. I live in a rather warm and dry area, for sure. What recommendations do you all have for this?

Thanks in advance. I've been reading through some posts, and this seems like a great crowd to learn from. :)

Welcome aboard, Allie.

Generally speaking, orchids shouldn't be watered "on a schedule", but when they need it instead, and there are a lot of variables that can affect that. For example, the pot will likely dry out a lot faster in one season versus another.

What type of orchid do you have?

What type of pot and potting medium is it in?

What does "rather warm and dry" mean?

Fill in a lot more blanks, including where you live, where you're growing it (windowsill with open or closed window, under lights, out on porch), etc. What are your typical day and nighttime temperatures and humidity? Continuous monitoring is less important.

I've tried ESP8266 + DHT22 Wi-fi logger (+ raspberry pie) to fine tune my temperature control. Other people use Arduino in place of ESP8266. It is super cheap, but it's not for everyone. I recently saw an orchid person recommending Sensor Push HT1 (link). It seems like a nice one, but it is pricey.

But if you are starting out, I think whatever cheap digital RH/thermometer with daily min/max is all you need as Ray said.

I think you are over complicating.
My climate temps and HR varies between both extremes and all I have is a digital device that cost me 16€... And never felt the need for anything more than that.

I agree with rbarata.. don't overthink this. Most orchids will acclimate to a range of temperature/humidity. What is important is first learning about the general needs of the types that you have, then try to match as closely as possible the areas within your own environment with the needs of the plant. In most places in the US, spring is a very good time of year, because the overlap between indoor and outdoor conditions is not that large - this gives you room to experiment a bit. You have multiple microclimates within your environment, both inside and outside. Look at how the sun moves through the day. Where are the trees? Do outdoor walls provide shelter or do they radiate heat and light? Figure out what you have before you worry about how to adjust.

They're Phalaenopsis, from a local grocery chain. They're in plastic pots with vent holes. We've been soaking them to just below the crown once a week. They have the store medium (appear to be some kind of bark chips).

Live in Denver - where it's definitely warm and dry. My partner likes to keep the apartment above 80 most of the time as it is his preference. I don't know the specifics of the humidity here though.

The Phals are 20' from our East facing windows to avoid direct sun. We've had to do quite a bit of hacking away at the roots already as they've begun to dry out and/or rot (with cleaned shears, of course).

Hoping to keep these beauties alive, but not sure how yet.

@naoki

Stellar info! Exactly the kind of info I was seeking. I've actually done a couple raspberry PI setups for some kids many years ago. I like that the PI could continuously record years of data without having to dump the data every 20 days as is necessary with SensorPush. May I ask if you're using a specific raspberry PI distribution or app. Perhaps there's an online guide?

To give these Phals the best chance of recovering I went ahead and ordered some Seramis, Hydroton and Urea Free Orchid 20-10-20 Fertilizer (will switch to bloom fertilizer later should these survive)

Also ordered a $15 3-in-1 soil meter to objectively know the soil humidity in addition to PI or SensorPush to keep track of the ambient environment.

I purchased an inexpensive ($10 to $15) relative humidity and temperature monitor a few years ago. I find that I mostly don't look at it much. When I do, it is mostly in the winter, when the house could be a bit chilly or dry.

Your Phalaenopsis (Phals) will like temperatures you are comfortable with. You can keep the air near your Phals more humid by keeping them with leafy houseplants. The bark that they are growing in is a good medium for them. Water your Phals when you are not seeing water condensing on the inside of the pot (assuming you have clear plastic pots). If the pots are not clear, water when the bark is dry and no longer feels damp or clammy. It is generally better to err on the side of under watering rather than over watering. Ask your local water utility if they know the dissolved solids content of your water; 250 ppm or lower is usually best.

Light for your plants should be moderately bright and indirect; avoid direct sun.

Avoid fertilizing too much or too often. If you decide to use fertilizer, give 1/4 of the strength suggested on the package, and fertilize less often than the package suggests (once a month is a good place to start). Urea free is not necessary, but is not a problem either.

Good luck, and welcome.

Welcome! I agree with others that have said you are overthinking this. As far as a humidity monitor, I have several AcuRite humidity monitors that are digital and they cost about $6 a piece. It reads the indoor temperature of the room and the humidity percentage. You'll get an awful lot of good advice here on the OB. Good luck.

Read this after I posted.

Fine to get all that gadgetry if you love gadgets. Why not, it's a hobby, enjoy. Understand that most of the monitors, etc. are completely unnecessary. Keep it simple.

Ditto.

I'm not currently using ESP8266-based loggers. I had ESP8266 (basically arduino + wifi) + DHT22 (RH and temp) in each grow tent/enclosure, and they were reporting to OpenHAB which was running on R-pi via MQTT. Each grow tent/area had one ESP8266+DHT22. R-pi was running Raspberian Jessie. R-pi was a headless, and I was accessing the data via web pages served by R-pi.

Here is the remote monitoring node based on ESP8266 and DHT22 RH/temp sensor (the web uses DHT11, but it is better to go with DHT22), and I started from here:
Meet the Arduino Killer: ESP8266

Here is openhab on Rpi:
Getting Started with OpenHAB Home Automation on Raspberry Pi

I think domoticz is an alternative to OpenHAB.

Home | MySensors - Create your own Connected Home Experience has lots of cool info.

Here is another possibility:
http://www.raspiviv.com

These are from my notes from 2 years ago, so there are probably better ones.

With regard to the soil moisture meter, it might not be too useful for coarse media. I was attending HOBO online workshop about soil moisture monitoring (I'm a professional plant biologist, and used to use HOBO loggers to monitor soil moisture in the field). I asked if some of their sensors can be used to coarse media like perlite and bark. The researcher from HOBO thought that it needs to be calibrated quite bit, and it would be quite difficult. I think weight based monitoring is probably more accurate. But your hand is probably sensitive enough to gauge the time to water (by weight). ;)

You don't need Bloom-formula fertilizer, and fertilizer is probably the last thing to worry about, and getting the correct amount of light and humidity would be better things to worry about at first.

@naoki

I greatly appreciate your sharing your notes. I'm excited to check that stuff out. I think I now have the lighting right after shuffling the phals to a different spot in our living room. It'll be fun to have the objective humidity/temp info along with the visual cues as we learn to optimally hydrate them.

Thanks again everyone for the wonderful advice!