Xiaomi Mi Flora Chinese and International version comparison

Xiaomi Miflora sensor allows monitoring of the surrounding environment of the plant. It can monitor temperature, soil moisture, conductivity (acidity of the soil), ambience light. There are 2 versions of the sensor, international and Chinese version. Realistically, I cannot see the difference between the 2 versions.

The left-hand side is the Chinese version and the right is the international version. Other than the packaging, the main difference is the price of the sensor. The International version cost 2x more.

In other forums, there are discussions that the Chinese version cannot connect to the MiHome App. I have set my MiHome app to connect to China server and it is able to register the sensor correctly.

For my usage, I will be connecting to Openhab to monitor the plants andusing Thomas Dietrich MiFlora mqtt daemon as the bridge between Openhab and the sensor.

The International version is detected as Flower care and the firmware version is 3.1.9 while the Chinese version is detected as Flower mate and the firmware is 2.6.2.

The 2 sensors are placed side by side to measure the values and both the sensor values are quite close.

Summary of the comparison between the 2 versions

	International	Chinese
Device Name	Flower Care	Flower Mate
Firmware	3.1.9	2.6.2
Cost	S$20+	S$12+
Light Value	Higher	Lower
Temperature Value	Higher	Lower
Conductivity Value	Lower	Higher
Ambience Value	Higher	Lower

Conclusion

From my observations, the 2 versions are very similar and since the Chinese version is a lot cheaper and I do not need to connect to Mi Cloud, The Chinese version is a better buy.

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