Soil pH Meter, MS-X1 Upgraded 3-in-1 Soil Moisture/Light/pH Tester Gardening Tool Kits for Plant Care, Great for Garden, Lawn, Farm (Black)...

Got this specifically to test lawn soil pH. I do notice that it reads more alkaline in the first photo, which is in an area where my grass is sparse, near arborvitae evergreens, which is where I expect more alkaline soil. I will apply lime soon and test the soil shortly thereafter and will edit this review as needed. This should help check the moisture of potted plants later this spring. Easy to use. Just wait at least ten minutes when testing pH.

Risky purchase... (my previous two review attempts were both rejected by ZeeBooth, due to the content conflicting with ZeeBooth's posting policies). The light meter works well. This is the only positive thing I can say here, as I was not able to test (and use) the other two functions... those being the soil moisture function, and the pH value function. That is all I am allowed to say here...

I noticed upon receipt that the meter wasn't zeroed, so using the present offset I went around and tested my potted plants and compared the results against good old fashioned universal pH paper - it was accurate, just offset! So I opened it up carefully and disassembled the unit entirely without severing any connections (good clean solder joints and logical point to point wiring inside, good on you manufacturer!) and re-zeroed the meter carefully. Closed it up and retested it; perfect match in results to difficult to use pH paper. pH readings seem to stabilize over about 5min, faster than the book's instructed 10. The Moisture function reads a little high IMO, but most of these types of soil conductivity meters will do that just because of tight electrode spacing, which is necessary for pH readings. But the moisture function works quite well for broad-strokes readings. I look at it as a bonus function; a bit extra data over what a finger tip gives. The light function is heavily weighted to warm light intensities; the red plastic window blocks UV and blue light - which does contribute to photosynthesis, but those same wavelengths also give inaccurate readings for this type of sensor (photodiode), so again this speaks to the unit's accuracy. So the unit might read very low on light function depending on your light source. My low power white light led plant lights read very low (since they are heavy in blue and green light), while my high power blue+red / "blurple" / magenta LED grow lights read much more strongly, as expected. Good for a relative light intensity reading for sure. Will be interesting to try it using natural light sources in the future. The aluminium electrode was a bit oxidized/tarnished upon receipt but a light sanding with 220grit paper brightened it up and made it work as intended.

Picked up this pH meter / light and moisture gauge to do one thing. Measure medium pH! I have above ground beds with veggies and flowers and strawberries. Also have potted veggies and potted flowers. All with the same blended soil. Month and a half and with different fertilizers for the different plant types. I checked all of them over and over again and got a solid 7 on every single poke in the soil. After two weeks of it i just knew better. So I took some soil out of a pot and bed both fed differently. Did a slurry test on them. Both way off. So I decided to makes up a pot you just soil and pH some water down to 2.5 completely saturated all of the soil let it sit for an hour and check it. Want to take a guess. Lo and behold a 7!!!!! What a waste of money. If its main function does not work price does not matter.

This works alright. I did not find any instructions on how to calibrate the pH. I tried to acidify soil with sulfur pellets to get a lower reading but it read around pH 7.0 no matter how basic or acidic my soil was. I could not get a reading full range. I want to see that the meter works at the range its labeled, which is what I mean by calibration in this case. Im not sure if the pH part is functioning properly. The wetness appears to work and light works only on solar lighting. It will not work on artificial plant lights unfortunately. I will do some reading to test out the pH range and get back to this review with more data.