Abstract
Overview
Water-Smart is a device that shows users if their plant needs to be watered, or is overwatered. It is a box with three LEDs, a knob, and a moisture sensor. The user inserts the moisture sensor into the plant’s soil. If the plant’s soil is too dry, a yellow LED lights up. If the plant’s soil has the preferred amount of moisture, a green LED lights up. If the plant’s soil is too moist, a blue LED lights up. Since different species of plants have different preferred moisture levels, users can change the preferred moisture range with the knob.
Settings
If the plant is a like a cactus and only needs to be watered every two weeks, the user can turn the knob all the way to the right, and the device will make the preferred moisture level relatively dry. If the plant needs to be watered once a week, the user can turn the knob to the middle and the preferred moisture level will be average. If the plant needs to be watered every 2-3 days, the user can turn the knob all the way to the left and the preferred moisture level will be relatively wet.
Requirements and Inspiration
The only requirement for this project was to put in practice our knowledge about Arduino circuits, therefore we didn’t have any restrictions. That being said, we came up with multiple ideas of possible projects. Since we didn’t know which project would be the best to work on we focused on the one that would be helpful for the user, and the one that could be done in a reasonable amount of time.
As students, we sometimes forget to water our plants, and when we see them getting dry we try to compensate for the times that we haven’t water them and we overwater them. That’s why we thought that a moisture detector for plants would be something helpful for the user. The device also helps save water by preventing overwatering.