Intelligent plant waterer

[mucek]

A colegue from our national electronics forum (elektronik.si) is launching Indiegogo campaign for plant waterer he developed with some really interesting solutions!
Do mind, that it runs on 2 AA batteries for 2 years (!) and can be programmed by a smartphone, where data is transfered to the waterer by blinking on the LCD screen (see video!).

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/daisy-si-smart-plant-waterer#home

Any comments, ideas ... are highly appreciated!

Regards,
Gregor

[David_AVD]

I read the "Intelligent plant waterer" title and wondered if it worked on plants that weren't intelligent too!   

[electr_peter]

Very interesting project.
Few questions:
1) is there a potential mold/algae problem in plastic pipes? I mean green stuff that grows on the inside of plastic watering bottles.
2) with regards to 1), how to clean this device and the pipes?
3) what is inside/outside diameter of pipes?
4) can you describe setting up procedure (how to connect pipes to device, how to fill or prefill pipes with water, how to set settings)?
5) does device allow free-running/pass mode, i.e. manually open the valve to test system integrity and water throughput?
6) what is the power consumption in mA? How did you test battery life time - extrapolated data or tested for few months?
7) is the device finished in terms of PCB/enclosure/pipes/design?

[Skimask]

I read the "Intelligent plant waterer" title and wondered if it worked on plants that weren't intelligent too!   

Now we have to worry about being politically correct when telling the unintelligent plants that they aren't getting watered because they're not intelligent.
Might hurt their feelings ya know.
Where does it end?

[calexanian]

Very interesting project.
Few questions:
1) is there a potential mold/algae problem in plastic pipes? I mean green stuff that grows on the inside of plastic watering bottles.
2) with regards to 1), how to clean this device and the pipes?
3) what is inside/outside diameter of pipes?
4) can you describe setting up procedure (how to connect pipes to device, how to fill or prefill pipes with water, how to set settings)?
5) does device allow free-running/pass mode, i.e. manually open the valve to test system integrity and water throughput?
6) what is the power consumption in mA? How did you test battery life time - extrapolated data or tested for few months?
7) is the device finished in terms of PCB/enclosure/pipes/design?

All valid questions not answered by the video. This is not a new idea. I have seen many products like this come and go. I do like the ability to account for solar radiation. Thats a big step in estimating evapotransporation of a plant. If i were them i would switch to commercially available black poly pipe from drip irrigation. They are using the clear vinyl tube because its soft and compliant but it will not hold up.

[Rerouter]

Another thing is, is it a solenoid, or an actual pump in the unit, i would imagine a solenoid based on power requirements, but that means you always need a certain head of pressure, and should your container run dry you have to then re-fill the piping to restart the siphon?

What material are your soil probes made out of? and what type signalling do you use to measure (AC or DC) both cases revolve around the possibility of the probes corroding in the soil?

[xfce]

Very interesting project.
Few questions:
1) is there a potential mold/algae problem in plastic pipes? I mean green stuff that grows on the inside of plastic watering bottles.
Yes I know about that used pipes outside for 2 years and they are just slightly green. I should add option to choose black or transparent version of water tube on end of campaign?!

3) what is inside/outside diameter of pipes?
it's a 6mm water tube (6mm outside, inner 4mm diameter)

4) can you describe setting up procedure (how to connect pipes to device, how to fill or prefill pipes with water, how to set settings)?
Just fill pipe with watter and connect to device and put in soil. Programming is simple, you go to web page select settings, click send data and hold daisy to screen of phone, tabled, pc.. Screen sends 32bits morse code like in about 10 seconds.

5) does device allow free-running/pass mode, i.e. manually open the valve to test system integrity and water throughput?
when is put in soil go to test procedure (RGB led blinks, sounder beeps, valve opens for short time, measure battery voltage and internal resistance).
There will also function to manually water and set proper watering time.

6) what is the power consumption in mA? How did you test battery life time - extrapolated data or tested for few months?
microcontroller uses deep sleep mode - about 1uA and turns on each 2 seconds for few ms. It also have internal DC-DC converter and turns on just for fraction time every two seconds. Valve works from 1V on.

7) is the device finished in terms of PCB/enclosure/pipes/design?
We will improve design and made few modifications what we learned form 3D printed prototypes. Moisture sensor will be improved. Its also option to get UART data from daisy

[xfce]

It's not solenoid and also not pump. Both solutions draws a lot of power. Believe me is more clever solution. Daisy.si can water all the time and draws current only on change It's motorized on/off valve.

Type of measuring is AC every 2 seconds for about 1ms and material is INOX. No corroding detected in 2 years.

[matkar]

Type of measuring is AC every 2 seconds for about 1ms ...

Could you extend battery life by reading humidity every hour instead? It seems a bit redundant to measure so often...
Do you put the controller in sleep mode between measurements?

[xfce]

Type of measuring is AC every 2 seconds for about 1ms ...

Could you extend battery life by reading humidity every hour instead? It seems a bit redundant to measure so often...
Do you put the controller in sleep mode between measurements?

Joup. I put microcontroller in sleep mode (about 5uA), for 2sec, wake up for 1ms and sleep mode again. When is turned on draws about 2mA for 1ms. This is 2000uA/2000ms If you calcualte this is about additional 1uA constant consumption. I think is not worth mentioning

Checking every two seconds is important to know if user put or remove device from soil - to turn on/off

[xfce]

We've reached 25% and 36days left!

[22swg]

For one plant !

Watering plants is not a 'its dry wet it ' problem, also some plants like to be moist at certain times , also watered from the bottom . I have build several greenhouse tomato watering systems , PIC based using a battery powered bilge pump a 3Ah battery lasts about a month , you don't really need to monitor soil moisture, just temperature , humidity , and have some ventilation  control , a good supply of water at the same temperature and water regularly during the day,depends on pump but mine is usually 10 secs every 3 hours  10am to 6pm in the height of the growing season Toms don't like to be dry at night , as fruits set you can also add feed to water supply . growing medium should be well drained .       

[electronic_eel]

No need for UART for two way communication - you could just blink the color led and detect the blink code with a smartphone camera.

What IP rating does the case have? Think about a full shower of rain hitting your device if used outside. Or a cold night and condensation builds up inside the case.

What kind of plastic do you plan to use for the case? What does it's specification say about UV resiliency? This is important when used outdoors over a longer period, the case may become brittle and break if it is continuously exposed to sunlight.

You plan to sell a finished product to end customers from the EU to within the EU. This means you must create a declaration of conformity and put a CE mark on the device. Have you scheduled or already conducted all the neccessary tests in a conformance test lab?

How about WEEE? Do you have a registration in each of the EU countries you plan to sell to? As far as I know this can become a quite costly endeavour with high initial setup costs per country, even if the total weight of the products sold is just a few kilos.

[PlainName]

I liked the look of this one, and it should be useful to me since I am tasked, twice a year, with keeping our plants alive whilst the missus goes off for a couple of weeks R&D.

But I am beginning to regret signing up to this First, I get spam of them every damn day, sometimes more than once. I would normally block senders who do this, but one day it might be an important announcement and I'd miss it.

Next, they've just started rewarding people for spamming their friends on the projects behalf. I am tempted to try and get a refund and consign these marketeers to the bin.

[PlainName]

The spam cleared up (can't remember if I blocked them or not) and the product finally turned up a week or two ago.

It is a jolly clever and well designed (and thought out) device which, so far, does the biz. Glad I want the whole way with this - I might even be tempted to  buy some more 

[crispy_tofu]

Now we have to worry about being politically correct when telling the unintelligent plants that they aren't getting watered because they're not intelligent.
Might hurt their feelings ya know.
Where does it end?

LOL make a 'Plant watering engineers morally bankrupt??' thread