Give Your Smart Home A Green Thumb With MQTT

March 7, 2021 by Michael Shaub 36 Comments

We have all been stuck inside for too long, and maybe that’s why we have recently seen a number of projects attempting to help humans take better care of their housemates from Kingdom Plantae. To survive, plants need nutrients, light, and water. That last one seems tricky to get right; not too dry and not drowning them either, so [rbaron’s] green solder-masked w-parasite wireless soil monitor turns this responsibility over to your existing home automation system.

Like this low-power soil sensor project and the custom controller for six soil sensors, [rbaron’s] w-parasite uses a “parasitic capacitive” moisture sensor to determine if it’s time to water plants. This means that unlike resistive soil moisture sensors, here the copper traces are protected from corrosion by the solder mask. For those wondering how they work, [rbaron]’s Twitter thread has a great explanation.

The “w” in the name is for WiFi as the built-in ESP-32 module then takes the moisture reading and sends an update wirelessly via MQTT. Depending on the IQ of your smart-home setup, you could log the data, route an alert to a cellphone, light up a smart-bulb, or even switch on an irrigation system.

[rbaron] has shared a string of wireless hacks, controlling the A/C over Slack and a BLE Fitness Tracker that inspired more soldering than jogging. We like how streamlined this solution is, with the sensor, ESP-32 module, and battery all in a compact single board design. Are you asking yourself, “but how is a power-hungry ESP-32 going to last longer than it takes for my geraniums to dry out?” [rbaron] is using deep sleep that only consumes 15uA between very quick 500ms check-ins. The rechargeable LIR2450 Li-Ion coin cell shown here can transmit a reading every half hour for 90 days. If you need something that lasts longer than that, use [rbaron]’s handy spreadsheet to choose larger batteries that last a whole year. Though, let’s hope we don’t have to spend another whole year inside with our plant friends.

We may never know why the weeds in the cracks of city streets do better than our houseplants, but hopefully, we can keep our green roommates alive (slightly longer) with a little digital nudge.

A Capacitive Soil Sensor Hack For Lower Voltage Supplies

July 27, 2019 by Jenny List 24 Comments

A frequent beginner project involves measuring soil moisture levels by measuring its resistance with a couple of electrodes. These electrodes are available ready-made as PCBs, but suffer badly from corrosion. Happily there is a solution in the form of capacitive sensor probes, and it is these that [Electrobob] is incorporating in to a home automation system. Unfortunately the commercial capacitive probes are designed to run from a 3.3 V supply and [Bob]’s project is using a pair of AA cells, so a quick hack was needed to enable them to be run from the lower voltage.

The explanation of the probe’s operation is an interesting part of the write-up, unexpectedly it uses a 555 configured as an astable oscillator. This feeds an RC low pass filter of which the capacitor is formed by the soil probe, which in turn feeds a rectifier to create a DC output. This can be measured to gain a reading of the soil moisture level.

The probe is fitted with a 3.3 V LDO regulator, which is simply bypassed. Measurements show its output to be linear, so if the supply voltage is also measured an accurate reading can be gleaned. These probes are still a slightly unknown quantity to many who might find a use for them, so it’s extremely useful to be given this insight into them.

Tired Of Killing Houseplants? Try Using WiFi.

December 17, 2018 by Ted Yapo 50 Comments

Here at Hackaday, we have to admit to neglecting a few houseplants in our time. Let’s face it… a cold, hard, thinking machine can care for our green friends better than you can. Why not team up? [cabuu]’s WiFi-enabled soil moisture sensor will do the trick in case you, too, want happy plants.

This is one of those projects which would have been much more difficult even five years ago, and really shows how lucky we are to have accessible technology at our fingertips. It’s conveniently constructed from off-the-shelf electronics modules, and nestled inside a 3D-printed case. The design is attractive as well as functional, showing the status LED and allowing access to the USB charging port.

The brain is a WeMos D1 mini, while a D1 battery shield and 14500 Li-ion battery supplies power. A key point of this build is the use of a capacitive moisture sensor, which doesn’t suffer the same long-term corrosion problems that destroy cheaper resistive probes. And no project is complete without an LED, so a WS2812 shows green for good, red for dry and blue for too wet. To extend battery life, the sensor supports a sleep mode, which tests the soil periodically, and presumably disables the LED.

Of course, if you’re a habitual plant-neglector, simply having a moisture probe won’t help; those can be as easy to ignore as the plant itself. That’s where WiFi comes in. [cabuu] wrote a Blynk app to monitor the sensor on a smartphone. The app shows current moisture levels and allows you to change the wet and dry warning thresholds. When the reading exceeds these levels, the app notifies you — this feature is the one that will keep your plants around.

Continue reading “Tired Of Killing Houseplants? Try Using WiFi.” →

Raspberry Pi Automates Your Tomato Farm

July 1, 2013 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

rpi-tomato-farming

Check out the tomato plants [Devon] grew using a monitoring system he built himself. It’s based around a Raspberry Pi. As far as grow controllers go it falls a bit short of full automation. That’s because the only thing it can actuate is the black water line seen hovering above the plants. But [Devon’s] work on monitoring and collecting sensor data should make it easy to add features in the future.

The moisture sensors pictured above monitor the soil in which the plants are growing. But he also has temperature and light sensors. These are very important when growing from seed and could be used in conjunction with a heating mat for plants that require higher soil temperatures (like pepper plants). The tomatoes are also pretty leggy. Now that he’s monitoring light levels it would be good to augment the setup with a grow light. A long term goal could even be a motorized bed which could raise the plants right up to the bulbs so they don’t reach for the light.

Don’t let the stars in our eyes distract you though. He’s done a ton of work on the project both with the physical build, and in plotting the data collected by the system. Great job!

Continue reading “Raspberry Pi Automates Your Tomato Farm” →

Analog Soil Moisture Alarm

June 22, 2012 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

The lion’s share of soil moisture monitors we see are meant as add-ons for a microcontroller. So we’re glad that [Miceuz] tipped us off about this soil moisture alarm he built with analog parts. It’s really not hard to take the concept and build it in the analog world. That’s because you’re just measuring a resistance value. But for those of us who never really got started with analog parts this is a great project to learn from.

A high-efficiency op-amp is doing the brunt of the work. When the soil is moist the resistance is rather low compared to a reference voltage provided by a separate resistive divider. But when the plant gets thirsty and the soil dries out the resistance increases, triggering the op-amp to illuminate an LED and create some noise on the buzzer (we’re a bit confused on how that buzzer works).

Unfortunately this isn’t a viable long-term solution as the battery calculations show it lasting only about four months. That’s where a microcontroller-based circuit really shines, as it can put it self in low-power sleep and wake infrequently to take readings.

Tears From Your Lonely Heart Will Activate A Comforting Tune

February 14, 2012 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

If you’re forever alone we’d guess you’ve long since stopped crying about it. But if you’re still prone to shed a tear on a dateless Valentine’s day this project’s for you. [Mikeasaurus] spruced up this pillow to play a tune when it senses your lonely soul. It’s got a moisture sensor which triggers an audio greeting card just when your weeping really starts to get soggy.

If you look closely at the top portion of the white fabric in the picture you can see there are rows of stitching. These hold a matrix of conductive wire mesh fabric on the inside of the pillow case. There are two buses made up of alternating rows (think of the tines of two forks pointed together) which make up the probes. When the gap is bridged by moisture a transistor circuit triggers the audio bits from a greeting card to play a song. Check out the demo after the break. We’re not satisfied that [Mikeasaurs’] couldn’t even bring himself to cry real tears for the clip, but maybe years of solder fumes have clogged up those tear ducts.

Continue reading “Tears From Your Lonely Heart Will Activate A Comforting Tune” →