“A monitoring station for my off-grid greenhouse. Multiple environmental parameters, WiFi, solar-powered, cloud connectivity.
This period of homely isolation has made me seriously think about sustainability and ways of fending off the possibility of a zombie apocalypse. Therefore, in true “The Martian” style, I’ve decided to build a greenhouse and science the s*** out of it by outfitting as much automation to it as I possibly could. Oh, and it grows food as well!
I’ve documented the process of building the environmental monitoring device. I initially wanted something simple to measure temperature and humidity in the greenhouse and send alerts to my phone whenever something went wrong.
It seemed simple enough, so I went ahead and did what any self respecting tinkerer would do: complicate it by adding a bunch of useless features. So, in its final incarnation, the system has four temperature sensors (three in the greenhouse at different height levels and one outside). It can measure humidity, luminosity, barometric pressure, and volatile compounds. It’s also solar-powered and has continuous WiFi connectivity. So, before it develops sentience and decides to starve me to death, let me show you how I’ve built it.”