I've been enjoying playing around with the Arduino recently. It's really quick to prototype and then I can optimize the code and port to a cheaper AVR if I like the project enough.
My girlfriend and I (okay, mainly me) struggle to keep the houseplants watered. We've lost a few crops of basil to overwatering and some chillis have dried out and are currently struggling to keep on keeping on.
So, the plan... Using the principle that dirt will have a lower resistance when it's wet, I'm going to set up some remote voltage sensors on all of the plants and then wirelessly transmit the soil moisture level to an Arduino Duemilanove equiped with a receiver.
The basic concept for the wireless link is seen at this hackaday entry - Cheap wireless for microcontrollers.
The microprocessor will check on the moisture (read:voltage) level every half hour and transmit it and their id back to the receiver shield which will sit next to my computer.
At the receiver I will store the maximum and minimum resistances. The plants should never get to 'dry' so once the moisture level is 20% above minimum. I will light up the Arduino' s LED to to indicate that the plants need watering.
Prototype reciever working... code to come.
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