Published March 18, 2016 © GPL3+

Rain Warning Display on Mobile for your Home Garden

A system that warns for unexpected rains to help out your garden. The system displays real time values on mobile.

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Rain Warning Display on Mobile for your Home Garden

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Arduino UNO

Jumper wires (generic)

rain sensor

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Blynk

Story

Recently I bought a rain sensor for hooking it up to my arduino. I have a home garden and watering it in my area is troublesome. I live in an area where we get unexpected rains. So I wanted to make a system that would check for rain on all times and alert me whenever it rains. The system notifies me on my mobile and shows the intensity of rain on my screen.

Rain sensors are used in the detection of water beyond what a humidity sensor can detect.

How it works:

The rain sensor detects water that completes the circuits on its sensor boards' printed leads. The sensor board acts as a variable resistor that will change from 100k ohms when wet to 2M ohms when dry. In short, the wetter the board the more current that will be conducted.

Pins:

A0.......... Analog output

D0......... Digital output

GND..... Ground

VCC...... Positive voltage (input: 5v for analog 3.3v for Digital.)

Loop Pins:

+ .......... Sensor board hookup A

- .......... Sensor board hookup B

Rain Sensor

Happy Hacking :)

Code

Smart Garden

#define BLYNK_PRINT Serial
#include <SPI.h>
#include <Ethernet.h>
#include <BlynkSimpleEthernet.h>
#include <SimpleTimer.h>

// You should get Auth Token in the Blynk App.
// Go to the Project Settings (nut icon).
char auth[] = "";


WidgetLCD lcd(V1);   // LCD Widget
int nRainIn = A1;
int nRainDigitalIn = 2;
int nRainVal;
boolean bIsRaining = false;
String strRaining;


void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Blynk.begin(auth);      // Start Blynk server
  pinMode(2,INPUT);
  while (Blynk.connect() == false) {
    // Wait until connected
  }
}
void loop() {
   Blynk.run();
  
  nRainVal = analogRead(nRainIn);
  bIsRaining = !(digitalRead(nRainDigitalIn));
  
  if(bIsRaining){
    strRaining = "YES";
  }
  else{
    strRaining = "NO";
  }
  
  Serial.print("Raining?: ");
  Serial.print(strRaining);  
  Serial.print("\t Moisture Level: ");
  Serial.println(nRainVal);
  Blynk.virtualWrite(3, nRainVal);
  lcd.clear();
  if (nRainVal< 550)
  {
       lcd.clear(); //Use it to clear the LCD Widget
  lcd.print(4, 0, "Raining"); // use: (position X: 0-15, position Y: 0-1, "Message you want to print")
  lcd.print(4, 1, "Heavily!"); }
  if (nRainVal> 700 && nRainVal < 900)
  {
      lcd.clear(); //Use it to clear the LCD Widget
  lcd.print(4, 0, "Rain"); // use: (position X: 0-15, position Y: 0-1, "Message you want to print")
  lcd.print(4, 1, "Warning!"); } 
   
  delay(200);

}