IOT Automatic Plant Watering System

This project is based on the article written here. Automated plant watering systems have been around for a while now. Still, they have never been as intelligent and comprehensive as the Arduino-based automatic plant watering system that our team has designed.

The system is perfect for users with a day job and frequently travel since it waters plants only when necessary without human intervention. The design features a built-in function that allows the user to be updated from time to time about the status of the system and the plant, making it unique from other plant watering innovations in the current market.

Our report details how the entire system works, which consists of two main parts, the offline watering system, and the online ESP8266 Wifi shield, as well as the FAVORIOT PLATFORM. Each part is explained in detail to create a complete system. We also discuss the materials, experimental design, and results.

In the automated plant watering system, a moisture level sensor is attached to the plant’s soil, and when the sensor’s reading is below the pre-set value, the pump will be activated. On the other hand, when the sensor reading is above the pre-set value, the pump will be deactivated. The pump will pump water from a built-in water tank.

An Arduino-compatible shield known as the ESP8266 ESP-01E UART Wi-Fi shield helps the Arduino board connect to the internet. It allows data integration from the Arduino board using the FAVORIOT platform. The FAVORIOT platform is compatible with any Internet of Things (IoT) and can collect and store data from various sensors and microcontrollers. The user is updated about the system’s status via emails, and graphs of the moisture and water tank levels are displayed on the FAVORIOT platform.

We describe the completed setup of the project, which includes ESP8266 ESP-01E UART Wi-Fi shield, Soil Moisture Sensor, Water Level Sensor, 6-12V of the water pump, 12V relay, 7.4V Li-Po Battery, three pots of soil, water tank, breadboard, and Arduino UNO. We also discuss the AT Command of the ESP8266 Wifi shield module that we used to manipulate the ESP8266 Wifi shield module to perform various tasks.

The functionality of the components is tabulated, and we display pictures of the complete overall system, the soil moisture level sensor sensing a dry plant, the water pump receiving a signal to pump water, the soil moisture level sensor sensing a wet plant, the water pump not receiving a signal, and the reading of the Soil Moisture Level sensor and Water level sensor sent to the FAVORIOT PLATFORM in a JSON string form from time to time.

Our team successfully designed an automated plant watering system that emails the user when the water tank level or moisture level is low. The system is unique from other plant watering innovations on the market due to its built-in function that allows the user to be updated from time to time about the system’s and the plant’s status. Future work on this project could focus on improving the neatness of the project box and further development of the FAVORIOT PLATFORM.

The details of the projects can be read here.