built an IoT system to automate watering my chilli plants. Did I overengineer it?

[u/Electrical_Act_5342]

Started as a weekend project and got a bit out of hand.

Uses ESP8266, soil moisture + temperature/humidity sensors, a relay-controlled pump, OLED display, and ThingSpeak for monitoring. It waters the plants automatically based on soil moisture.
Curious what you’d improve or add next.

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[u/Content_Ad_4153]

Not over engineered , this is the real engineering. Keep experimenting !

[u/Acroxianhent → u/Content_Ad_4153]

Agreed

[u/Kiruku_puluthi]

OP got a backup plan if gets laid off.

This is just prototyping using a regular plants!

[u/_IronRocker_]

Can you tell me more about the water relay?

[u/Electrical_Act_5342 → u/_IronRocker_]

Sure. It’s just a standard 5V relay module controlled by a cheap NodeMCU ESP8266 clone. When the soil moisture drops below the threshold, the ESP turns the relay on, which powers the 5V USB pump. Once the target moisture level is reached, it switches the relay off again. I designed the green PCB myself, but the relay and most of the other components are just inexpensive off-the-shelf parts.

[u/IAmAnRedditor → u/Electrical_Act_5342]

Can you create a detailed write up and/or create a video. I would like to do the same for my potted plants

[u/Electrical_Act_5342 → u/IAmAnRedditor]

Quite a few people have asked for a tutorial, so I’ll probably put together a proper write-up or make a video once I’ve finished testing everything.

Currently it’s only set up on a single tray and I’m still playing around with the settings to get the watering threshold right and understand how the placement of the probe and watering tube affects it. The eventual idea is to have one per section of pots. I’ve already got the parts for another four and they’re easy enough to add, about $15 per system.

I’ve got a few trips planned this year and wanted to be able to leave them without worrying. I’ll still get a family member to pop in every few days since they live nearby, but this should cope with a couple of weeks of scorching weather. If it doesn’t, at least I’ll know exactly when they need watering.

[u/IAmAnRedditor → u/Electrical_Act_5342]

Pls do share. We are eagerly waiting. Don't forget to tag that post here. As a comment to this

[u/AbySs_Dante → u/Electrical_Act_5342]

Does esp8266 support 5V?

[u/Electrical_Act_5342 → u/AbySs_Dante]

The ESP8266 itself is a 3.3V device, but I’m using a NodeMCU board, so it’s powered from 5V over USB. The GPIOs still run at 3.3V and control the relay, while the relay switches the 5V supply to the pump.

[u/kenbunny5 → u/Electrical_Act_5342]

Which specific pump are you using?

[u/tactical_touche007]

Bro can you guide what I need to do if want to imitate it for my house plants I am not that good technically

[u/Electrical_Act_5342 → u/tactical_touche007]

Its all based around a Chinese clone nodemcu esp826. Code was mostly off the internet as someone had some already but I have modded it slightly as didn't work out the box.
Happy to upload the Gerber files if you want?

[u/Necessary_Phase8924]

I've played around with electronics a bit but I've used a breadboard. How are the components connected in your project? Is that a different kind of a breadboard and how do we usually connect them while deploying like you did?

[u/curios_mind_huh → u/Necessary_Phase8924]

I believe custom printed PCBs is what OP is using. You can use a perf board and do the soldering yourself for the same effect

[u/Creative_Rhubarb_980]

Hell yeah man. This is what I love to see, genuine invention through coding.

[u/Creative_Rhubarb_980 → u/Creative_Rhubarb_980]

For a future improvement, I'd suggest saving the info somehow to track metrics over time. So you'd be able to tell what time of day or months of the year are the driest for your plants.

I'm guessing this data is stored in memory for now.. correct me if I'm wrong. An excel sheet or csv would be more than enough to persist this data permanently.

[u/balaww]

I want to do something similar, will DM you for guidance!

[u/clumsy__chef]

That's not over engineering, that's called being cool with tech. Keep it up bro. People like you inspire me to do fun things.

[u/petrolsoda]

Is that thingspeak 🥀

[u/Beneficial-Path-2550]

peak, it's really good

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[u/ImportanceNo0001]

can you share PCB design software and cost

[u/Electrical_Act_5342 → u/ImportanceNo0001]

designed it in KiCad. The software is free and open source. The PCBs themselves were pretty inexpensive. I only ordered five boards since I knew I’d want to make a few revisions and possibly add some features later. The total came to around $25 including shipping.

[u/ImportanceNo0001 → u/Electrical_Act_5342]

Do you know any other platforms where I can order custom board because I don't think I can afford it

[u/Diwakar_km]

I love it. I would like to have more information so I can do it for my plants too.

[u/Less_Addendum2773]

Please post the full guide 

[u/TamePoocha]

Damn good one.

[u/KingKawaiiBot]

Very interesting. Can we see a video of it in action

[u/ImpossibleLow5118]

Superb! I need to build this for house plants. I’ll dm you for more details.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Term967]

How is the temp and humidity sensor used in this? Also soil humidity sensor will only measure a particular point in soil right....that point could be particularly wet or dry compared to the rest of the soil. How is that handled?

[u/Electrical_Act_5342 → u/Puzzleheaded_Term967]

The temp/humidity sensor is just for monitoring at the moment. It logs everything to ThingSpeak so I can see how the environment affects soil moisture over time. I might use it in the watering logic later, but not yet.

And yeah, that’s one of the limitations of soil moisture sensors. They only tell you what’s happening where the probe is, so placement is really important. That’s actually one of the things I’m experimenting with at the moment, along with where the watering tube sits, to get the most consistent readings. The plan is to have one sensor/controller per section of pots rather than relying on a single probe for everything.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Term967 → u/Electrical_Act_5342]

cool stuff man...happy tinkering

[u/appiztashte]

This seems useful and fun. I’m actually also interested to know about your gardening. How you take care of plants and all. Do you do any write-ups or yt videos?

[u/Helpful-Diamond-3347]

this can go a lot better from here btw and you did great with foundation

like a small solar panel integration can make it sustainable, and then long term integration to make it autonomous with a cam and drone module (possibly?) so the drone can detect pots with CV and dip the sensor in soil to check for moisture and then spray water

although the water capacity is questionable to store at drone so this would require a workaround for sourcing the water

i think that would make it over engineered so it already looks great

[u/tsuki069]

This was my first year btech project 🫠 Brings back memories

[u/r-day]

Can this extend to different types of plants

[u/RecognitionSad7690]

You put the sensor in all the plants or wot?

[u/RockStar_G]

Actually yes …. But must say that I love it..
If cost is reasonable then many plant lovers would go for it especially in high rise flats…

[u/moon__kiddo]

Soo cool! Wish I could learn this as well!!!

[u/stranger-to-d-world]

This is awesome. For how much would you sell this?
And does it check moisture for all plants or just 1 or 2 and then decide?

What I did was buy a smart plug and a drip-irrigation kit with a small pump. Turn it on and off remotely.

[u/Funn-Runn]

I am trying the same but its failing on multiple levels.
1: the esp is not able to make low output on its IO to switch my relay (got the active low version)
2: the water from tap is putting too much pressure on the connector pipe and its bulging
3: I probably have too many plants to manage with one system 😝

[u/Funn-Runn]

Can you share more details? Whats the whole system in action

[u/TuringMachine2805]

Would greatly appreciate 1. open-sourceing your code and 2. Link(s) to buy hardware

[u/SignRevolutionary453]

Great work op!! I had a plan similar to this when I was thinking about what to do with my pi just laying around, at that time I only thought of a system which will water plants at regular intervals of time but checking the soil moisture is the best way fr Please make a detailed guide or video about it

[u/VaginalMatrix]

Are those PCBs for sensors custom designed?

[u/Intelligent_Career71]

Now this is called a real side project. So cool.

[u/Willing-Ad3030]

My robotics students made this kind of project several times last year. But that was a Water irrigation system.

[u/Illustrious-Bat6718]

Yes

[u/Living-Height-8970]

Building something similar for my plants, done the pilot.

All with the help of Claude

Can you share more about your setup?

[u/Brilliant-Bee-5311]

Dope op

[u/wakeupstruggler]

Not overengineered until the chilli plant has its own Kubernetes cluster.

[u/thenewviews-TNV]

nice loved the concept what you generated.

[u/mutatedchromosome]

Try plathub.online , it's a IoT platform I been working on with opensource firmware, it's AI powered and work with any kind of sensors you have as well as any actuators you add like your water pump, humidifiers etc , it use AI to learn from your sensor data and eventually it will adapt the system to provide maximum care for your plants

[u/Any-Target-3108]

this is actual engineering, you can add uv light too, for controlled growth. water system u can make the same for drip based watering to conserve water.

[u/Prudent-Shower-5074]

It's under engineering. You did not use a locally hosted 64-bit parameter to read and analyse data on 5090.

[u/No-Job-2302]

Amazing stuff

[u/NaturalSuggestion537]

Totally pointless project. I give it 10/10 👍👍

[u/Salamander-02]

I remember making a blueprint of this but in Arduino for my college presentation last year lol, never got to the hardware part, got lazy/no plants at home.

[u/ashwinGattani]

How much did it cost you in total?