I’ve just finished a write up for an ESPHome powered house plant watering system. It is designed to deliver customised water payloads to multiple plants, on different schedules for each plant. Take a look:
Lots of learning outcomes here but I liked the centralised approach and also the lack of sensors, which I think is best left to other solutions - there are plenty of nice self-contained plant monitoring devices already, so I just wanted to solve the problem of delivering water - the right amount at the right frequency for each plant.
I also don’t want to have to go fill up a tank for each plant (that’s just like having to water the plants in the first place!) and don’t want to have to buy and flash a microcontroller for each plant either (I don’t think plants need IP addresses). So I ended up pumping water from a central tank to all my plants, and aside from requiring a lot of piping, I think this approach is fab.
Let me know what you think and what I should change next time I iterate it!
Very nice. I have a simpler setup for outdoor plants in pots. Solar powered so using as little as possible power. I gave up on relays very early on as they consume even when not on. I went for Mosfets to switch on the pumps.
I found these submersable pumps didn’t last very long (rusted). So far mostly going with self priming diaphram pumps at 5 volts. I don’t mind if it takes 2-3 mins to drip water.
I use black pipes to avoid algae build up. My water source is similar level to plant pots but get caught out from time to time with that siphon effect. Water overflow isn’t a big as problem outside as in a house but i set a max turn on time in esphome in case HA looses connection.
I prefer to press a button to water my plants rather than set a schedule. That’s the gardener in me.
Mahko_Mahko uses a more horizontal water storage in his popular thread.
