About
component
API configuration code
program to request Twilio to send SMS to the user on breaking the threshold
Bolt cloud (hardware and code
circuit connection
further scope of improvement and upgrade
outputs

Published April 7, 2020 © GPL3+

Moisture monitoring and irrigattion system

The moisture sensor monitors the moisture of the soil, and sends a SMS to the user when the system breaks the threshold moisture.

IntermediateWork in progress12 hours885

Moisture monitoring and irrigattion system

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Bolt IoT Bolt WiFi Module

DFRobot Gravity: Analog Soil Moisture Sensor For Arduino

Pimoroni Maker Essentials - Mini Breadboards & Jumper Jerky

water pump

Arduino UNO

Story

About

Suppose your parent has allotted a task to you to check the water level in the plant daily and water them if required. Isn't it very boring and tiresome?

What if you get an SMS on your mobile telling that water level in your plant is very less and need water immediately. Sounds Interesting right!! But how can it be done?

The moisture monitor and irrigation system aims on monitoring the the moisture the soil and maintain the moisture required by the plant to sustain a long healthy growth.

component

the required components are

Bolt module, moisture sensor, jumper wires, subject(plant/soil)

for further improvement or upgrade

an Raspberry Pi or Arduino, submissive water pump, gas sensor, temperature sensor, intensity approximation (LDR ) can be used

API configuration code

Introduction to Twilio

Twilio is a third-party SMS functionality provider. It is a cloud communications platform as a service (PaaS) company. Twilio allows software developers to programmatically make and receive phone calls and also send and receive text messages using its web service APIs.

Please note that SMS delivery via a trial Twilio account is not guaranteed to be instant by Twilio. Also, note that SMS will not be sent to numbers which have DND(Do Not Disturb) turned ON.

from the twilio cloud create the configuration function

program to request Twilio to send SMS to the user on breaking the threshold

in python platform write the code to request Twilio to send SMS to the user on breaking the threshold

Bolt cloud (hardware and code)

In the Bolt cloud platform configure the connections and create the code to recive data from the sensor and verify with a graph

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circuit connection

connect the components to bolt module as per the configuration for clarification verify the video

further scope of improvement and upgrade

by an extension of a Arduino or Raspberry Pi we can create program to automatically water the plant. Or request an action based on which further actions will be taken by the system

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outputs

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Code

Sending an SMS when moisture Crosses Threshold

Sending an SMS when moisture Crosses Threshold

Python

The code continuously fetches the moisture value using `analogRead` function. Since the sensor is connected to A0 pin of the Bolt, we will execute the analogRead() function on the pin A0.

The response from the Bolt Cloud using the analogRead() function is in a JSON format, so we will need to load the JSON data sent by the cloud using Python's json library.

The moisture value is inside a field labelled as "value" in the response. We can access the JSON values using the statement `sensor_value = int(data['value'])`. This line also converts the sensor reading to integer data type for comparing the moisture range.

This is enclosed inside a try-except block to handle any error that may occur in the code. More explanation of try-except code block is given here.

The next line of code checks if the moisture reading is below the minimum limit. If it exceeds, then the SMS will be sent.

The SMS to be sent will contain the text "The Current moisture sensor value is" followed by the moisture value.

The response from Twilio will be stored inside the `response` variable.

Once the temperature reading has been sent, we will need to wait for 10 seconds to get the next reading. For this, we will put the program to sleep once every loop iteration.

The statement `time.sleep(10000)` puts the program execution on hold for 10000 seconds. This means that the program would not execute for a period of 10000 seconds.

import conf
from boltiot import Sms, Bolt
import json, time

minimum_limit = 300

mybolt = Bolt(conf.API_KEY, conf.DEVICE_ID)
sms = Sms(conf.SID, conf.AUTH_TOKEN, conf.TO_NUMBER, conf.FROM_NUMBER)


while True: 
    print ("Reading sensor value")
    response = mybolt.analogRead('A0') 
    data = json.loads(response) 
    print("Sensor value is: " + str(data['value']))
    try: 
        sensor_value = int(data['value']) 
        if sensor_value < minimum_limit:
            print("Making request to Twilio to send a SMS")
            response = sms.send_sms("The Current moisture sensor value is " +str(sensor_value))
            print("Response received from Twilio is: " + str(response))
            print("Status of SMS at Twilio is :" + str(response.status))
    except Exception as e: 
        print ("Error occured: Below are the details")
        print (e)
    time.sleep(10000)

Moisture monitoring and irrigattion system