Greenhouse Alarm System with ESP8266 & Ubidots

Maintaining a small garden at home can be a very rewarding experience. Yet, the pace of modern life gives little to no chance of keeping up with the needs of our plants. Ever so often, people become enthusiastic about starting a garden, but then are taken aback by the responsibilities that such a project entails. Or, even worse, some people take up gardening and, then, forget to pay the necessary attention to their plants until it is too late. The main reasons for dying plants are excessive or limited watering, as well as temperature and sunlight issues. Some plants need more light, while some others may need less. Air temperature and humidity are also important factors.

The advent and increasing use of IoT applications has made gardening much easier and cost-effective. So, now, there is a simple-to-build and easy-to-use web-based dashboard display which can be programmed to notify you of your plants’ needs. Valerie Odioh’s Greenhouse Alarm System is designed to help you grow your favorite herbs, flowers, or plants with only little effort required on your part. It is underpinned by the idea that IoT technology can help you achieve the maximum benefit with the minimum amount of effort. The above-mentioned monitoring system is based on the Ubidots IoT Application Development Platform, which has a user-friendly design and setup that keeps track of all the data regarding your plants’ needs. 

NodeMCU ESP8266

The NodeMCU with the ESP8266 chipset makes use of the Arduino environment for programming and managing firmware. Then, Valerie Odioh’s detailed tutorial explains how her smart alarm system triggers a buzzer that notifies users of the humidity or dryness levels surrounding their plants, as well as the intensity of sunlight they have been exposed to. This can be considered the equivalent of giving plants a voice which alerts their carers when they have to look after them.

You can find the entire tutorial here.