“Automatic feeding; Environmental monitoring (including temperature, humidity, water quality); Real-time video monitoring; Remote management
In today’s era of the Internet of Things and smart home technology, it has become an innovative trend to integrate advanced technology and traditional fish farming art to create an intelligent, automated and highly ornamental fish tank. The Xiao ESP32-S3 Sense development board launched by SeeedStudio provides strong technical support for this idea with its excellent performance and rich scalability. Powered by the high-performance ESP32-S3 chip, the board integrates powerful processing power, a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth dual-mode wireless communication module, and an embedded OV2640 camera, making it an ideal core component for building a smart fish tank.
The purpose of this article is to explore how to use the Seeed Xiao ESP32-S3 Cam development board to design an automated, Home Assistant (HA)-connected smart fish tank system. The system will integrate a number of functions, such as automatic feeding, environmental monitoring (including temperature, humidity, water quality), real-time video monitoring, voice control and remote management, etc., to make the fish tank maintenance work more scientific and convenient, but also enhance the viewing experience and interactivity.
1.1 Project Objectives
Research on the materialization of ESPHome based on ESP32S3 Sense (involving Camera/DHT/LED/Servo)
Research on fish tank management based on NodeRED+ Xiaoai automated service (involving automatic voice broadcast of temperature and humidity, regular lighting on, and regular baiting)
Through careful design and meticulous debugging, we will take advantage of open source software and hardware to build a set of intelligent fish tank solutions covering hardware assembly, software programming, cloud service docking and other multi-level technical links. In this process, it not only reflects the joy of life brought by technological innovation, but also shows the wide application prospects of Internet of Things technology in improving the quality of life and enhancing the pet care experience. As the chapter progresses, readers will learn how to use the Xiao ESP32-S3 Cam and its peripheral components, combined with the powerful automation capabilities of Home Assistant, to build a smart fish tank system that is both practical and full of technological charm.
1.2 System design flow chart
A system design flowchart is a flowchart used to describe the design process of an HA automation system. In this process, the first step is to initiate the project, and then to the system design stage, including structural design and hardware module design. In the design of hardware modules, it also includes hardware module design and software module design. Then joint debugging is carried out, if the debugging is successful, the system design is modified, if the debugging fails, it is returned to the hardware module design to make changes until the debugging is successful. Finally, it is necessary to summarize and record the archive.
2. Key technologies
2.1 HA environment setup
After a year, I started playing Homeassistant again, and I found that there were many mysteries and surprises. In my shallow cognition, to learn embedded well, you must have played Homeassistant and played your own name! Because this is one of the most practical life applications, the monthly update makes only living water come; Embracing Daqian makes the vitality of eternal youth; The operation is wonderful, and it can be called the perfect landing of software and hardware! In 2024, I will publish a complete development tutorial of the indissoluble bond between Raspberry Pi and Homeassistant, which only requires simple code splicing and module stacking, and will see the inorganic connection between the hardware of the grounded (GPIO, PWM, UART, etc.) and the software of the wonderful pen (automation, speech recognition, speech synthesis, chatgpt large language model, etc.), and finally design a smart home system Homeassistant of your own.
2.2 Access to ESPHome devices
This tutorial walks you through how to use Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3 with Home Assistant to run it.
ESPHome connection and send sensor data/control devices after connecting the Grove module to the XIAO ESP32S3. So, let’s get started!
2.3 NodeRED automation design
To implement the HA environment configuration and the physical information of the xiao ESP32S3 development board to access ESPHome, the next step is to design the corresponding automation control, the key of which is the NodeRED automation design. The implementation is the opening of the voice function of Xiao Ai’s Node-red plug-in of Homeassistant, and the automatic control flow of NodeRED node flow design is used to broadcast any text with variables
3. System hardware
The system hardware consists of xiao esp32s3 and raspberry pi 400, the raspberry pi 400 is the main control server, xiao esp32s3 is the client, and xiao esp32s3 is connected to Camera/DHT/LED/Servo
|Name | Signal port | Function
DHT | GPIO8 | Detect the temperature and humidity outside the fish tank
LED | GPIO21 | Fish tank lighting
Servo | GPI7 | Fish tank feeder”