Plant Care System

The Brief

For our IoT Bootcamp midterm we were tasked with making a system that can monitor and take care of a plant. It will monitor things like temperature, humidity, dust, and air quality. It will also sense when the soil is dry and automatically water the plant.

The Plan

In my house I already have too many plants and too few places to put them. Instead of placing them on a bookshelf or table, I planned to design a shelf that holds everything and that I can mount on the wall. For my plant, I opted to grow some mint that I can use for garnish and drinks over the summer.

I designed the shelf in 3D CAD software to make sure everything would fit and that it would look good. I decided to mount the electronics on the back to avoid any errant water splashes.

Fabrication

I cut the shelf panels out of 0.5 in plywood on a CNC Router. To prevent water from sitting on the wood, each container sits on an acrylic coaster. The coasters have a lip to stop water from going off the edge and each sits snugly in a pocket cut into the base. The load cell sits between two pieces of acrylic that have holes cut in them to allow the cell to flex.

Mint Dashboard

My automated system should take perfect care of my plant and I can sit back and drink mint juleps all summer, right? Well... although my plant will get watered automatically, my water reservoir will eventually run out which I am just as likely to forget. In order to safeguard my perfect summer, I included a scale underneath the reservoir and calibrated it to high and low levels of water. When the water is low, I have set up Zapier to send me an email reminder to fill it.

All of the sensor data will also be available on an Adafruit.io dashboard so I can check on my little friend from anywhere. Hello summer!

Smart Plant in action

Next Steps

At this stage, the Plant Care and Monitoring System is quite functional. With that said, some improvements have been percolating in my mind while I work. Future improvements would include:

• Light sensor that keeps track of how much light the plant gets.
• Incorporated grow lights that can supplement natural light (if the light sensor detects it did not get enough), or completely replace the need for natural light.
• Hide or obscure the electronics. As it is now, I do not love the look of the electronics on the back panel, particularly when LEDs on different boards light up. I would like to cut a frosted piece of acrylic to sit between the plant and the electronics. This would take the edge off of the harsh LEDs while keeping a hint of electronic flashing.
• Add a few tastefully placed LEDs of my own. A few neopixels underneath the scale could add a helpful and attractive display. They could light the water with soothing blues if the container is full. If the container is running low it could turn red and/or flash.

Thanks

Thanks to the CNM IoT Bootcamp crew: Reed Searle, EJ, Brian Rashap, and my great classmates for their help and support!