An Arduino guide to automated plant care

I know posts on automated plant care are very popular on Gadget Master, so I want to highlight this Arduino appnote – Smart Farm Irrigation System Using Arduino Edge Control.

At the heart of the system is the Arduino MKR WiFi 1010, with its Cloud communication capabilities, with an Arduino Edge Control.

Basically, it is a smart watering system. We’re talking control of four irrigation “zones”, using motorized ball valves (one per plant pot or container) and getting water from a “smart tank” (with water level monitoring),

Plus you can manually activate the watering, via Arduino IoT Cloud, through dedicated widgets. And stats – such as average irrigation time and water consumption – can be viewed on the IoT Cloud.

Another feature is to plan watering according to a weather forecast. This is done by including an API-based weather station in Arduino IoT Cloud…

Arduino writes:

“The Edge Control is responsible for keeping track of the time with its integrated real-time clock (RTC), in order to schedule the use of the valves and know when a day has passed. In addition, the same setup is able to: (1) Measure the level of the tank water with a 4-20 mA liquid level transmitter to calculate its consumption. (2) Control an LCD screen where the status of the valves and timers are shown. In addition, the LCD push button can be used to manually activate the valves.

Moreover, the MKR WiFi 1010 is used to implement the communication between the setup and the cloud. It notifies the Edge Control of any changes in the cloud to activate, deactivate or configure a timer to control the valves. In addition, it reports the values of the Edge Control sensors on the cloud. The communication between both devices is done leveraging the I2C communication protocol.”

The plant care application note can be found in the Edge Control section of online Arduino documentation, here. It’s a scaled down example intended to replicate a smart farming application.

A key element of the system is the differential pressure Liquid Level Sensor (working 4-20mA) and there will need to be an external 12 VDC power supply connected.

The project’s main hardware and materials are pictured, right, and listed in full below.

Images: Arduino

See also: How to build a plant monitor with Arduino (right)

And also: Arduino Plant Watering Kit provides home-brewed watering system