New Product Smart Garden System – Raspberry Pi

November 9, 2018 Featured Topic, Grove, Grove Sensors, IOT, Kickstarter, Lightning, Projects, Raspberry Pi, SwitchDoc Products, Thunder Board

New Product Smart Garden System – Raspberry Pi

The Smart Garden System (or SGS for short) is an introductory, easy to build Raspberry Pi based environmental monitoring and plant watering system using advanced sensors to monitor the soil moisture, monitor the sunlight, watch the air quality and monitor temperature and humidity.

You can see the new product here.

Where is the science and engineering in this project?  All through it from the bottom to the top.  The most interesting points?   One, we are using feedback in the system.  Negative feedback to be exact.    We aren’t just watering on a timer, we are looking at the soil moisture and if it is high enough, we don’t water.  We don’t water unless we need to.

It is designed to be easily and simply put together and tested with No Soldering Required!

And you get all the source code for the Smart Garden System software so you can do what you want.   Modify the code to your own application!  Add sensors!  Add functions!  Add more plants!

While this product does not come with a Raspberry Pi, you can buy a fully loaded SD Card with all the Smart Garden System preinstalled here.

Quick Demo of the Prototype Raspberry Pi Smart Garden System

See your Plants on the Internet with the Blynk App

How to use Blynk With The Smart Garden System

See our easy installation manual here.

What Will You Learn with Raspberry Pi Smart Garden System?

The educational goals for Smart Garden are:

  • Learn about the Raspberry Pi and installing software on the Pi
  • Connecting up sensors to the Raspberry Pi
  • Learning about Feedback loops and regulating water to plants
  • Understand your indoor environment and what affects it
  • Learn about the new technology called the Internet of Thingssmart garden system

What is in the Kit?

  • SI1145 Sunlight/IR/UV Sensor
  • 8 Pixel RGBW Strip
  • Sensitive Grove  Air Quality Sensor
  • 4 Channel 16 bit Analog to Digital Connverter
  • HDC1080 Indoor Temperature and Humidity Sensor
  • Grove OLED 128×64 Display
  • Grove Ultrasonic Sensor
  • 8  20cm Grove Cables
  • 1 50cm Grove Cable
  • USB PowerControl NE Solid State Really
  • Capacitive Moisture Sensor
  • USB Activated Pump
  • Hose 200mm, Clip for hose
  • 3D Printed Ultrasonic holder
  • 3D Printed SGS Stand

 

What is a Grove Connector?

The way we have been wiring I2C connections before just didn’t work for building fast and quick IOT projects.  Then we found Grove.

There are hundreds of Grove Devices from multiple manufacturers around the world.     Just for a quick look finds over 100 boards.

You can’t plug it in backwards.   If you put the connector in the wrong plug it just doesn’t work.  No smoke.  No fire. This makes us happy as we look over into our Box Of Death, filled with boards we have ruined.

We quickly found the Grove connectors and their respective cables very useful. With the large selection of Grove I2C devices available, we decided to include a Grove connector on all our future boards and products.

For more information, check out our full Grove Tutorial here.