Inspiration
We want to make it easier to both travel and properly care for our houseplants
What it does
It keeps four different types of plants watered, and allows you to check on their soil moisture and set the desired soil moisture from anywhere with an internet connection.
How we built it
We started with the Elecrow Arduino Plant Watering System, added an ESP-8266 module to connect it to WiFi and make HTTP requests to publish sensor data and, then built a web platform to store that data and revise the setpoints.
Challenges we ran into
We originally planned to use a serial bridge to a Particle Photon to get the data to the cloud. This turned out to be unreliable, so we turned to the ESP-8266 to connect to the web. None of our team was familiar with this hardware, however, which made it a major time drain.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
Despite running into setbacks, we did get the system to the point it was being controlled remotely.
What we learned
Don't underestimate the challenge of embedded code and hardware setup.
What's next for Connected houseplant watering system
There's a lot that could be done. Immediate needs are more robust control, better logic on the hardware, cable & appearance improvements (a case, waterproofing). Eventually, historical data & visualization, perhaps an upgrade to a system that could be provisioned, perhaps visual monitoring data.
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