CHIRP soil moistire

I just got a CHIRP wired up to a D-1 (ESP-8266)

running the software from

(not the Adafriuit version)

and am wondering what others have seen.

I2C loaded an pulled in the numbers straight away.
everything is responding.

soil moisture reading on an open, in the air sensor is no less than 305
saturated in the soil, max value I saw was 630

light goes from 300 with an LED flashlight dead on to 56,950 with the room ceiling light from a light not very close. to 33,500 with my hand over the sensor.

my question is what others are getting as readings ?
it seems the full range is no more than 300 to 630 for soil.

I have no clue why the light sensors goes down in the shade.