Blumat Digital Pro Plus - Soil Moisture Sensor
Best for: growers in soil, coco or living soil who want to know exactly when to water instead of guessing by weight or feel.
Our thoughts
Overwatering and underwatering are two of the easiest ways to stress roots, and both usually come down to guesswork. This takes the guessing out entirely by giving you an actual number for root zone moisture, rather than relying on lifting the pot or poking a finger in the soil.
The Blumat Digital Pro Plus is a handheld probe that measures soil moisture tension and displays it as a reading in millibars, rather than a vague "wet/dry" scale. Push the probe into the root zone and it tells you how much suction the roots would need to exert to pull water from the surrounding medium - a genuine indicator of when your plant actually needs watering, not just how the surface looks. It works across soil, coco and living soil, making it useful whichever growing medium you're running.
How it compares
It's a more precise alternative to guesswork and to simpler analog soil meters.
- Versus lifting the pot to judge weight, or poking a finger into the top inch of substrate, a millibar reading tells you what's actually happening at root depth, not just at the surface.
- Versus a basic analog "wet/dry/moist" dial soil meter, the Digital Pro Plus gives a genuine numerical tension reading rather than a rough three-position guess.
- Versus Bluelab's own soil probes, which focus on pH and moisture more generally, the Blumat Digital Pro Plus is specifically built around tension-based moisture measurement, the same principle used in agricultural tensiometers.
For growers who've had root problems from over or under-watering before, the precision this gives is worth far more than the price of the unit.
Usage guidance
Consistency in where and how deep you test matters more than testing constantly.
Taking a reading
Push the probe into the root zone at a consistent depth each time, close to where the bulk of the root mass actually sits, and read the moisture tension off the display.
Interpreting results
Get to know the range that suits your specific medium and plant - a lower tension reading generally means wetter soil, a higher reading means it's drying out and getting closer to needing water.
Building a routine
Test at the same time of day and same spot in the pot for readings you can meaningfully compare over time, rather than one-off checks in random locations.
Technical specifications
- Measures: soil moisture tension, displayed in millibars
- Suitable media: soil, coco, living soil
- Display: digital readout
- Format: handheld probe
- Use case: identifying the correct watering point rather than guessing
Who this is for
- Soil, coco and living soil growers who want data-driven watering instead of guesswork
- Growers who've had issues with root stress from over or under-watering
- Anyone dialling in a watering schedule for a new medium or new pot size
- New growers who want an objective number rather than relying on experience alone
Best suited to growers wanting genuinely precise, repeatable moisture readings rather than a rough estimate.
Our take
This is a small tool that solves a genuinely common problem - not knowing whether your plant actually needs water or just looks like it might. The millibar reading takes the emotion and guesswork out of one of the most-argued-over jobs in growing.
Worth picking up if you want to stop guessing and start watering based on what's actually happening at root level. One we sell a lot of for new growers.
