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Slightly tangentially related, for those of us who are into gardening and coding, there is a plant monitor made by Xiaomi called Xiaomi Flower Care that will mo

Slightly tangentially related, for those of us who are into gardening and coding, there is a plant monitor made by Xiaomi called Xiaomi Flower Care that will monitor moisture, light, temperature, and soil fertility. It works over Bluetooth and can be purchased on Amazon for as low as $8 per probe but the vendors will often charge around $25. You see a lot of rebranded ones but they're all the same from Xiaomi. It works with their iOS (and presumably Android) app. Someone has released a SDK for it: https://github.com/vrachieru/xiaomi-flower-care-api https://github.com/vrachieru/xiaomi-flower-care-api My plan is to use that and build a Raspberry Pi to monitor my plants. And later on maybe control the watering system. Anyways, it's a nice cheap plant monitoring option. It was really helpful when I was trying to figure out why my plants were turning yellow. People were mostly telling me that I was either over watering or under watering, etc. Then the probes all told me that my soil has no fertility left so I just added some organic 5-5-5 fertilizers and my plants are doing great again. The nerd in me love checking the data every day but would ideal build a Raspi server to sync and display some graphs some day (using a Prometheus endpoint perhaps?) If anyone has good advice on how to control a set of water valves using Raspberry Pi, please let me know! I know about GPIO but I would like to have a bus of some sort so I can add more valves in the future if needed. Maybe a USB solenoid?

mikehotel 7y ago
Good luck with your plans! Think about using a bell siphon [1]. Its typically used in aquaponics with a constant stream of water being pumped, but the pump can certainly be switched with a relay/pi/sensor setup to allow for intermittent dry spells (depending on what your growing). Water can be pumped from a nearby reservoir or tank. [1] https://worldwaterreserve.com/aquaponics/bell-siphon-for-aquaponics/ https://worldwaterreserve.com/aquaponics/bell-siphon-for-aqu...
pardavis 7y ago
Woah. This is awesome! I travel for work and keeping my plants happy has been vicious trial and error with passive auto watering stakes. I've been looking for a convenient sensor package so I don't have to muck around with wires. Jackpot! There are many raspberry pi projects on reddit for the "microgrowery" community... I recommend having a search. I plan to set up an indoor tomato and herb garden using these methods. For solenoids, I advise some methods like [1] so that you can connect a cheap and daisy-chainable relay board like [2] via SPI. Then you can control anything. If you don't want to get down into the 5v to 3.3v mumbo jumbo, it may be easiest to connect an arduino or clone via USB to the raspberry pi. There are bazillions of documented ways to drive relays with an arduino. [1]: https://www.tansi.org/rp/interfacing5v.html https://www.tansi.org/rp/interfacing5v.html [2]: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SPI-breakout-board-with-6-relays-for-AVR-arduino-PIC-Raspberry-Pi-/160927333012 https://www.ebay.com/itm/SPI-breakout-board-with-6-relays-fo...
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
With some caution: This works for specific plants only. I'm getting into cacti and other succulents as a hobby and I'm learning that minimal water and minimal soil fertility is actually the desired environment... which means such a monitor wouldn't help me. (This possibly also applies to bonsai- there is several overlapping growing mediums which makes me suspect this is the case.)
ptah 7y ago
awesome! it would be good to have a database with information on what each type of plant you have needs and then alert if conditions are bad for that particular type
mattferderer 7y ago
Looks like this is the same device for $9 on Amazon in case anyone is now sold on wanting one. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L491F8K/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_d5BqDb11VVWAJ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L491F8K/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_d...
pmohun 7y ago
You may find this interesting: http://www.takecareofmyplant.com/ http://www.takecareofmyplant.com/ There is a related subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/takecareofmyplant/ https://www.reddit.com/user/takecareofmyplant/

mikehotel 7y ago

Good luck with your plans! Think about using a bell siphon [1]. Its typically used in aquaponics with a constant stream of water being pumped, but the pump can certainly be switched with a relay/pi/sensor setup to allow for intermittent dry spells (depending on what your growing). Water can be pumped from a nearby reservoir or tank. [1] https://worldwaterreserve.com/aquaponics/bell-siphon-for-aquaponics/ https://worldwaterreserve.com/aquaponics/bell-siphon-for-aqu...

pardavis 7y ago

Woah. This is awesome! I travel for work and keeping my plants happy has been vicious trial and error with passive auto watering stakes. I've been looking for a convenient sensor package so I don't have to muck around with wires. Jackpot! There are many raspberry pi projects on reddit for the "microgrowery" community... I recommend having a search. I plan to set up an indoor tomato and herb garden using these methods. For solenoids, I advise some methods like [1] so that you can connect a cheap and daisy-chainable relay board like [2] via SPI. Then you can control anything. If you don't want to get down into the 5v to 3.3v mumbo jumbo, it may be easiest to connect an arduino or clone via USB to the raspberry pi. There are bazillions of documented ways to drive relays with an arduino. [1]: https://www.tansi.org/rp/interfacing5v.html https://www.tansi.org/rp/interfacing5v.html [2]: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SPI-breakout-board-with-6-relays-for-AVR-arduino-PIC-Raspberry-Pi-/160927333012 https://www.ebay.com/itm/SPI-breakout-board-with-6-relays-fo...

SolaceQuantum 7y ago

With some caution: This works for specific plants only. I'm getting into cacti and other succulents as a hobby and I'm learning that minimal water and minimal soil fertility is actually the desired environment... which means such a monitor wouldn't help me. (This possibly also applies to bonsai- there is several overlapping growing mediums which makes me suspect this is the case.)

ptah 7y ago

awesome! it would be good to have a database with information on what each type of plant you have needs and then alert if conditions are bad for that particular type

mattferderer 7y ago

Looks like this is the same device for $9 on Amazon in case anyone is now sold on wanting one. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L491F8K/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_d5BqDb11VVWAJ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L491F8K/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_d...

pmohun 7y ago

You may find this interesting: http://www.takecareofmyplant.com/ http://www.takecareofmyplant.com/ There is a related subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/takecareofmyplant/ https://www.reddit.com/user/takecareofmyplant/