Plants tend to need a regular supply of water to stay happy. If you’re a green thumb, it’s one of the primary things you should take care of before you go on holiday. This DIY plant watering system from [Jaychouu] offers to handle just that.
The system consists of a soda bottle acting as a water container, and an electronically-controlled valve to control the flow of water to plants. Irrigation of the plants is via dripper nozzles to provide a small but consistent feed to the plants. The use of drippers tends to disturb the soil less than pressurized jets of water. A soil humidity sensor is used to detect moisture levels and avoid over-watering. There’s also a capacitive water level sensor that fires off a warning when the reservoir’s water level is low. An ESP32 serves as the brains of the operation, allowing remote control via Blynk.
If you’re looking for a simple way to drip water your plants while you’re away, it’s hard to go wrong with this concept. If you feel like a more passive solution though, we’ve seen other viable methods too.
The linked article featuring a passive solution is not really passive since it uses an ESP32, etc. There are of course water spikes like these: https://www.printables.com/model/153308-fully-customizable-pet-bottle-watering-spikeplant- which are passive. This one is also nice: https://www.instructables.com/Self-Watering-Pot-Plate/
That is a lot of ready to use parts and I mean no offense in this, but when I see lists of SKUs in a video, it feels like watching a commercial. No implications made, it’s a subjective feeling, not objective reality.
When I tend to plants of friends I just ask them in a slightly autistic way how many mL of water in what day interval. Whilst it upsets them most of the time, especially when I refuse their arbitrary units like “coffee mugs” (is that a large or small or even frustum shaped one?) and ask for a definite value on a measuring cup. So far they all were happy with my services after lots of frowning. I don’t understand why, they just sigh and rarely does anyone manage to respond.
“but when I see lists of SKUs in a video, it feels like watching a commercial” – https://www.dfrobot.com/ – well would you look at that….
As if adafruit and sparkfun were not expensive enough for me :c
At least Jack Ma will always love me and my tiny wallet.
Weird to get annoyed over someone making a project easier to take on. Get therapy bro.
Great job! My lime tree might be alive today if I had this setup. Definitely added to my to-do list.
Is drip feeding not a good solution for this? Just an adjustable tube restriction to control feed rate, like the one used on hospitals.
The ESP32-S2 has capacitive touch pins built in. Has anyone tried just using two wires along a bottle, or two pieces of tinfoil with the ESP32 capacitive inputs to detect water in the bottle?
My Insteon “Leak” detectors have two wires which I believe go to a comparator or an opamp. When they get wet the detector goes off using the current flowing between the contacts.
The reservoir on the senseo coffee maker has a floating magnet near the bottom that activates a sensor to signal when the reservoir is empty.
Someone here could surely mimic this.
An ultrasonic ping can measure the distance to water level. Blowing air across the top and measuring the resonant tone would also work, but the audible whistle may be annoying.
When in doubt, just refill until an overflow sensor is triggered.