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During the summer, we grow a lot of herbs, fruits, and vegetables. Thanks to the wonders of technology, we can be EVEN LAZIER than we already are when it comes to watering! Using our handy-dandy "should-i-water" experience, our plants can be automatically watered by using the handy-dandy water and moisture pucks. Additionally, we can choose to get a daily report delivered to our email address.
Here is an example email:
Good Morning, Margaret!
Partly cloudy until this afternoon.
Planters up front - Unless the weather says otherwise, you should water. The reading is 160, the threshold is 180, the battery level is 3.77.
I put together more detailed weather info below. You can click on the iddy-biddy image to make it bigger.
Please find many things to smile about.
With love,
Thor's little helper
The message I send to my husband is similar but doesn't include details about the moisture reading and threshold I set:
Good Morning, Thor!
Planters up front - Unless the weather says otherwise, you should water.
Clear throughout the day.
I put together more detailed weather info. You can click on the iddy-biddy image to make it bigger.
Please find many things to smile about.
With love, Thor's little helper
Moisture pucks are put in each watering zone. At 4AM, the RFM69CHW Feather inside each moisture puck wakes up and reads the moisture sensor. After reading the moisture sensor, the Feather sends the reading over RFM69 to a Raspberry Pi. After storing the reading in the database, the Raspberry Pi checks if the reading is below the threshold set for that watering zone. If it is, the Raspberry Pi sends a "start watering" packet over RFM69 to the associated water puck. The water puck then turns the valve designated for the irrigation lines for that watering zone on and off.
At 5AM, a service on the Raspberry Pi wakes up and sends an email message to my gmail.com email and one to my husband, who uses outlook.com.