I was going to say the exact same thing then read this… and I am not sure the spelling etc… but Ardrunio would also…
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I’d assume the sensor will need to be at canopy level.
I’m not sure the hood, or even a LED fixture would be the best place to put something like that.
~MacG
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Depending on how handy you are, it might be best to build your own led quantum light.
It is probably easier that building an arduino device.
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I know I posted this link in another thread, but it is applicable here as well as it specifically addresses light meter use.
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Depends on the Arduino device. 
For a temp and humidity sensor, it’s pretty simple.
You need a controller board with WiFi - they make little boards that have basic Arduino foundation with Wifi. You connect the humidistat sensor to the little board via jumper cables, plugged into labeled plugs for different purposes (i.e 5v power, analog data, digital data, etc.).
Once you have the wiring done, then you need to write a program that you will upload to the Arduino board via a USB cable connection to a computer running the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE). The program will read the incoming data and massage it as needed, and then either needs to push it to something you can read (i.e. a Web service or database or a flat text file, whatever you can programatically update and query). In my case I wrote my program to push the data to a Blynk service - Blynk is an open source, free “Internet of Things” solution that lets you build small apps to use on your phone from your own private data streams.
I can post my reference code for the humidistat sensor I created. Let me go find it.
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Would it be a better light than kind led 5w series?
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You could probably build one as effective, or maybe even more so than the Kind LED, for less money, and maybe even more customized to the space you want to grow under.
@dbrn32 I’m sure could point you in the right direction.
He’s busy moving into a new house, but he might come around eventually.
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I’ll have to give that a try im descent at wiring and have a red seal electrician buddy that helps me.
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// You should get Auth Token in the Blynk App.
// Go to the Project Settings (nut icon).
// char auth[] = “1c018821b288402ea166342f93efd1ae”; //insert here your token generated by Blynk
#include <DHT.h> // Including library for dht
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <BlynkSimpleEsp8266.h>
#include <SimpleTimer.h>
String apiKey = “myThingSpeakAPIKey”; // Enter your Write API key from ThingSpeak
const char *ssid = “myWiFiSSID”; // replace with your wifi ssid and wpa2 key
const char pass = “myWiFiPasswd”;
const char server = “api.thingspeak.com”;
// You should get Auth Token in the Blynk App.
// Go to the Project Settings (nut icon).
char auth[] = “myBlynkToken”; //insert here your token generated by Blynk
SimpleTimer timer; // used to determine how often to collect and send data
#define DHTPIN 10 //pin where the dht11 is connected
DHT dht(DHTPIN, DHT11);
WiFiClient client;
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(115200);
delay(10);
dht.begin();
Serial.println("Connecting to ");
Serial.println(ssid);
WiFi.begin(ssid, pass);
while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED)
{
delay(500);
Serial.print(".");
}
// Setup a function to be called every second
timer.setInterval(1000L, sendUptime);
}
// This function sends Arduino’s up time every second to Virtual Pin (5).
// In the app, Widget’s reading frequency should be set to PUSH. This means
// that you define how often to send data to Blynk App.
void sendUptime()
{
// You can send any value at any time.
// Please don’t send more that 10 values per second.
Blynk.virtualWrite(dht.Temperature); //virtual pin
Blynk.virtualWrite(dht.Humidity); // virtual pin
}
void loop()
{
float h = dht.readHumidity();
float t = dht.readTemperature(true);
if (isnan(h) || isnan(t))
{
Serial.println(“Failed to read from DHT sensor!”);
return;
}
if (client.connect(server,80)) // “184.106.153.149” or api.thingspeak.com
{
String postStr = apiKey;
postStr +="&field2=";
postStr += String(t);
postStr +="&field1=";
postStr += String(h);
postStr += “\r\n\r\n”;
client.print(“POST /update HTTP/1.1\n”);
client.print(“Host: api.thingspeak.com\n”);
client.print(“Connection: close\n”);
client.print(“X-THINGSPEAKAPIKEY: “+apiKey+”\n”);
client.print(“Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\n”);
client.print(“Content-Length: “);
client.print(postStr.length());
client.print(”\n\n”);
client.print(postStr);
Serial.print("Temperature: ");
Serial.print(t);
Serial.print(“F, Humidity: “);
Serial.print(h);
Serial.println(”%. Send to Thingspeak.”);
}
client.stop();
Serial.println("Waiting...");
// thingspeak needs minimum 15 sec delay between updates, i've set it to 30 seconds
delay(10000);
Blynk.run(); // Initiates Blynk
timer.run(); // Initiates SimpleTimer
int chk;
chk = DHT.read(DHTPIN); // READ DATA
}
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I did look into light sensors that could work with Arduino/Raspberry PI. You can find lux meters, but not PAR meters. I would assume some programming could be done to do a conversion to PAR from a lux meter, but I haven’t delved into what that math looks like. You’d also have to make some bold assumptions if you don’t know the spectrum of your lights… but with the spectrum data you might be able to write a program tailored to it.
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First hit from the Google Machine:
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Has anyone invited MT3?
I put him on a quantum sensor that I had been eyeballing for a bit. It’s an apogee sensor, but plugs into laptop or other usb devices. There is some software that does a lot more than give simple par readings.
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I’d love to learn how to use it , I’m also looking for a environment controller that takes VPD in consideration. As well as CO2 lol. Do u know of any great controllers?
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ChromTroller. Is what I use, a bit pricey but it controls all my systems and I’m about to add watering to it soon.
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