Intro: The Failing Wife Acceptance Factor
If you’ve ever struggled to get your significant other fully onboard with your smart home ambitions, I feel for you. I’ve been there, along with many others. It’s a tough sell explaining why the porch lights turn on automatically at 7 PM when no one has touched a switch.
Running a testing instance of Home Assistant sure doesn’t help either. My work for SmartHomeScene has earned me more than my fair share of frowny faces and skeptical looks. It was always a challenge getting a good WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) score, no matter what I tried.
Then I came across the Ivy Smart Planter during a routine AliExpress dig. The algorithm just threw it at me, probably knowing that I click anything that isn’t a wall switch or a light bulb. It was cute and interesting enough to prompt me to do some more research and eventually, buy a sample.
In this article, I am sharing my experience with the Ivy Smart Planter. This cute smart flower pot single-handedly boosted the WAF score tenfold, more than any other device I’ve added to my smart home. You can get it on AliExpress, Amazon US, Amazon DE, Amazon NL, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon CA.
What’s the Ivy Smart Planter?
The Ivy Smart Planter is an intelligent flower pot that makes cute faces when the water level is low or when there is insufficient light. It reacts to sounds, touch interactions, displays the time and weather, and has a built-in Pomodoro Technique timer. It operates on a self-watering mechanism, drawing from an internal water reservoir that you refill periodically.
In addition to monitoring light and soil moisture, the planter contains sensors that measure ambient air temperature and relative humidity. An intelligent plant sense feature adapts all parameters to the plant type you choose through the app, making sure it’s cared for properly. You can adjust sleep mode settings, change sensor sensitivity and calibrate the water sensor.
The Smart Features of the Ivy Planter
The Ivy Smart Planter is not a Zigbee device but Wi-Fi, which means Tuya cloud dependence. Tuya Wi-Fi is the last type of device you, me or anyone else should add to their smart home. But I figured, wife won’t use it connected anyway, as all data is visible on the display, so it will just stay offline.
Once it arrived, I decided to connect it to the Tuya app anyway using a throwaway account. I wanted to examine the smart aspect of it and see what it can do. To my pleasant surprise, this device really was sensor and data rich once paired to the app.
Here are a few screenshots along with a bit of an explanation for each:
The Main screen displays the current status of the planter and the potted plant. It tells you the water status, current light level, air temperature, and humidity, giving you an at-a-glance overview of your plant’s environment. This screen also shows how long the plant has been cared for, the planter’s battery level, and provides access to custom animations to personalize the planter.
The Plant Sense menu allows you to configure how Ivy detects the plant itself. Its main feature is “Auto Plant Detection,” which determines the presence of roots by analyzing the distribution of water in the soil. You can toggle this feature on or off and adjust the sensor’s sensitivity with a slider to fine-tune how well it detects the specific plant.
The Sleep Mode menu helps you manage when the planter is active or resting. It features a “Smart Sleep” mode that lets Ivy decide when to sleep during the day, and a “Night Sleep” mode for a scheduled rest period. You can customize the exact start and end times for the Night Sleep mode, ensuring the planter isn’t active when you don’t want it to be. This means it does not react to sounds, touch or anything else while it’s sleeping.
The Sound Perception menu enables your planter to be interactive and aware of its surroundings. When “Sound Reactive” mode is enabled, Ivy can hear sounds and vibrations, which can trigger various expressions and reactions. The sensitivity of the sound sensor is adjustable, allowing you to control how responsive it is to ambient noise. I think this is the feature my daughter loves the most.
The Touch Perception menu adds another layer of interaction by allowing Ivy to respond to physical contact. With “Touch Interaction” enabled, the planter can feel human touch on both its body and the plant it holds. There are three touch points that make it react, one on the front and two on its sides.
The Localization menu adapts the Ivy planter to your specific region and preferences. Here, you can change Ivy’s language and enable location and weather services. By using your phone’s geolocation, the planter can access local weather information, and display it on the screen. For privacy’s sake, I don’t advise using this feature.
Integrating the Ivy Smart Planter to Home Assistant
Interestingly, the Ivy Smart Planter can be integrated locally in Home Assistant. I found out the device is supported in the Tuya Local integration, exposing every single feature available in the app. You can find instructions for setting up the Tuya Local integration on its official repository.
Once I managed to add the planter to HA, here’s what was exposed:
It exposes air temperature, air humidity, soil moisture, light level, water container level, water absorption status, and the whole range of settings for controlling the planter’s behavior. You can toggle sound or touch perception on or off, configure the sensitivity thresholds, enable the sleep function and change the localization settings. Everything the app offers was now available locally in Home Assistant.
Great, but I needed to find out if the planter works once the internet was cut off. If you are not aware, the Tuya Local integration does not guarantee the device in question will operate properly once internet connectivity is blocked. Instead, it simply opens up a low-latency, local control path to your device, eliminating the cloud loop.
I blocked the device in my network firewall and the device continued to operate via Tuya Local only partially. There were sporadic connection drops from time to time (maybe about 3-5 times a day). It updated its sensors, but there was a connection lost displayed on the device screen. You can touch the button to remove it, but it’s safe to say the integration was not 100% local. Once I allowed internet access, the Ivy Smart Planter worked great via Tuya Local in Home Assistant.
Automating the Touch Buttons
The touch buttons on the Ivy Smart Planter can be automated in Home Assistant via Tuya Local. Props to user thewade, who recently added this functionality in version 2025.7.1. He also shared a simple automation for triggering actions with any button press (touch). Here’s the code:
alias: Love
description: ""
triggers:
- entity_id:
- event.smart_planter_hug
trigger: state
conditions:
- condition: state
entity_id: event.smart_planter_hug
attribute: event_type
state: pressed
actions:
- target:
entity_id: tts.home_assistant_cloud
data:
media_player_entity_id: media_player.bedroom_display
message: I love you!
action: tts.speak
mode: singleAs the integration creates a separate event entity for each button, you can automate them however you wish. These are named event.smart_planter_hug, event.smart_planter_left_touch, event.smart_planter_right_touch, and event.smart_planter_plant_touch.
The Pomodoro Technique Timer
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s that uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. These intervals are known as “pomodoros,” named after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer Cirillo used. The core idea is to improve focus and productivity by working in short, concentrated bursts, followed by brief periods of rest to prevent mental fatigue, and then taking a longer break after completing four “pomodoros”.
The Ivy Smart Planter has a built-in pomodoro technique timer which makes it a great companion for studying or working. It will count down from 25 minutes, alert you it’s time to take a break and then start counting again. It will also count the total daily “pomodoros”, helping you keep track of your total study time. Very useful feature for individual who have trouble focusing or those who find themselves working long hours without breaks.
Final Thoughts
Well, there you have it. I managed to find out what it was. The smart gadget with the highest wife acceptance factor (also known as Home Approval Factor) in my smart home. Of all things, a smart planter from the Tuya ecosystem. Tuya Wi-Fi, mind you.
This device has been in my home for precisely 244 days. During this entire period, my significant other hasn’t actively used any of its smart features within Home Assistant or the Tuya app. Instead, she’s simply planted small seedlings, monitored their progress directly on the planter’s display, and reacted accordingly before moving them to a bigger pot.
The real win for me is that this device shed a positive light on the entire smart home concept. She started asking questions and showing genuine interest in the idea, which is a huge victory in my book. I no longer get frowny reactions when I have to move the coffee table to try out a new smart plug.
From a local-only smart home perspective, make no mistake: this is a Tuya Wi-Fi device. It doesn’t operate reliably via Tuya Local once the internet connection is cut (though it works great with the internet connected). So, if privacy concerns are on your mind, this device is not for you.
With that said, I do think the Ivy Smart Planter makes a great birthday gift for your significant other, if they are at least a little bit interested in flowers or plants. The planter is available in five different colors. Here’s where you can get one:
Alternative links: AliExpress 1, AliExpress 2, Amazon NL, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon CA.
Fun to read review, thank you!
I searched a bit but so far nobody seems to have published a deeper look inside the device, what chipset it uses, etc. if it’s one. Latest tuya chips have anyway been more difficult to be flashed it seems, both ota as well as directly on the pcb. The screen could e.g. serve additional purposes.
It’s an ESP32 module. It’s identified by my router as espressif 🙂
This needs esphome now!
Oh nice! Thank you for the info!