Plant Water Indicator

Always forgetting to water your indoor herbs? With this indicator kit, you will never forget to water your plants again!

IntermediateShowcase (no instructions)10 hours313

Things used in this project

Hardware components

SparkFun Soil Moisture Sensor (with Screw Terminals)

Jumper wires (generic)

Particle Argon

LED (generic)

Breadboard (generic)

Software apps and online services

Particle Build Web IDE

Story

Our mission for this project was to make sure you never forget to water your indoor herbs at home. It’s too easy to forget to water your herbs, and by the time you notice that they need water, its usually too late! We wanted to find a way to let you know the perfect time to water your plant to make sure the plant doesn’t dry out or get over watered. We designed a system using two particle argon kits that communicate with each other to sense soil moisture content, and flash a light to let you know it’s time to water the plant. Our system utilizes the SparkFun soil moisture content sensor that is connected to one argon to signal when the moisture content is too low. If the sensor detects a low reading, and it is time to water the plant, it outputs a message to the other argon kit that interprets the message as needing water. When the plant is in need of water, the argon flashes an LED consistently until the plant has been watered. The system takes readings every two seconds, so right when the plant is watered, the indicator stops blinking. We highly recommend placing the LED indicator right near your plant, so every time you’re in the kitchen and your plant needs water, you don’t miss it!

Here are some photos of our project!

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Here is a video showing our project in action!

This is a graph of the sensor outputs over time

Code

int detectPin = D4;
    int plant = 0; 
    int sensorRead = 0; 
    
    void setup() {
        
        pinMode(detectPin, INPUT);
        Particle.variable("plant", &plant, INT);
        Particle.variable("sensorRead", &sensorRead, INT);
        
    }
    
    void loop(){
        sensorRead = digitalRead(detectPin);
        if (sensorRead >= 1)
        {
            
            Particle.publish("Parsley","Watered");
            delay(2000);
        }
        
            else if (sensorRead == 0)  {
                
                Particle.publish("Parsley","WATER ME!!");
                delay(2000);
                
            }
    }

int led1 = D7;
void setup()
{                
    pinMode(led1, OUTPUT);  
    Particle.subscribe("Parsley",myHandler);
}

void myHandler(const char *event, const char *data)
{
    if (strcmp(data,"WATER ME!!")==0)
    {
        digitalWrite(led1, HIGH);
        delay(1000);
    digitalWrite(led1, LOW);
        delay(1000);

    }
    
    else
    {
    delay(100);
    }
}

Credits

Rafaelo Fronzaglia

1 project • 0 followers

Nathan Dechambeau

0 projects • 0 followers

Plant Water Indicator