SmartPlant Watering System

House plants can be challenging. Sometimes you over water, sometimes you forget to water, but now you can forget it entirely and let SmartPlant handle it for you.

Smart Plant uses a Particle Argon Microcontroller to control its functions. It hosts a number of sensors to check on your plant and its environmental conditions. A SparkFun BME 280 checks the room temperature, humidity and pressure, Grove sensors check the dust concentrations and air quality, while a capacitive soil moisture sensor checks on the soil conditions.

All of the data is displayed on an OLED but it is also uploaded to an Adafruit.io dashboard.

The microcontroller uses a relay to power a submersible water pump. When the soil moisture reading is dry enough, the pump will automatically trigger, providing water for the plant.

However, you can also tell the microcontroller to water the plant using a button on the Adafruit Dashboard.

If all that fails, when the moisture level gets very low, I have set up a Zapier "Zap" to send an SMS message to my phone. This should only happen if the automatic watering function has failed, most likely due to the water reservoir being empty.

I am excited to see how the plant does over an extended timeframe. I used a type of plant that I have previously had trouble maintaining, so if this system works with this plant, I think it will work well for a multitude of house plants.