Weather Buddy

Is your room always dry? Do you want to measure temperature or humidity in any space you want? Planning to buy some indoor plants suitable for your room? Weather Buddy(and its buddy) are here for you!

Comment

Weather Buddy

Inspiration

A group member's room is always really dry in winter and wanted something to detect the humidity in their room. Another group member loves plants and originally planned to use the humidity sensor to record humidity of their greenhouse. We therefore combined both ideas and wanted to create a portable temperature and humidity sensor for users to use in any indoor space they want.

Project overview

Our project features a sensor that tracks both temperature and humidity levels in real-time. The sensor is connected to a microcontroller, which transmits the collected data to AWS for storage and further analysis.

How we built it

Hardware:

  • We used ESP8266, DHT22 sensor, LED lights, and breadboard
  • We used circuits to control the LED lights and wires to connect the sensor to the ESP8266

Software:

  • The hardware was coded in Arduino IDE
  • Sensor data was sent to AWS for storage and organization before being queried in python
  • Weather Buddy was built using Dash and Plant Buddy was built using Flask
  • Plant Buddy leveraged OpenAI API for data information and the chat function

Challenges we faced

  • IoT data organization complexity: We originally planned to use Azure to store sensor data in order to visualize it on Power BI. However, we were unable to create a Power BI account and loading data using Python was too complicated.
  • LCD display failure: We were not able to set up an LCD display to show humidity and temperature

What we learned

  • Arduino programming: We learned how to program in Arduino IDE
  • Hardware: We gained a deeper knowledge in ESP boards, LED lights, sensors, and circuits
  • Cloud storage: We gained knowledge in different cloud services offered by AWS and Azure

Opportunities for improvement

  • Integrate both weather buddy and plant buddy together into a single webpage
  • Make the hardware into a smaller scale so we can 3D print a case for the sensor
  • Add a LCD Display
Share this project:

Updates