Android uianimator: How can I get an EditText value, when a hint is set

I have an EditText field with a hint specified. For example:

<EditText
  android:id="@+id/myedittext"
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:hint="My special hint" />

In my Android animator testcase, I have the following code:

UiObject editText = new UiObject(new UiSelector().resourceId("my.package:id/myedittext"));
System.out.println(editText.getText());

The editText.getText() statement returns the hint when the EditText is empty. Now I have a case in which I want to be sure that the EditText is empty. The hint in my case is a value which could be a legit value.

Is there a way to get around this?