Sproutly

Introducing Sproutly:

I've failed to properly take care of many plants I've had throughout the years. Forgetting to water them, leaving them too close to open windows during the winter, and forgetting what type of light settings they thrive in. I created Sproutly as a tool to improve my relationship with my plants and I hope that it's something that is useful for you, too!

What it does:

Sproutly consists of two main functions: it has a moisture and light sensor that will track the plant's physical healthiness and a sound detection microphone that is installed to encourage you to speak with your plants. Speaking to your plants will help them thrive because we should all show them a little more love and care, AND the carbon dioxide emitted from your breath is crucial to their growth and survival.

The idea is that a light is connected to both sound and moisture sensors and the light will act as a visual notification system. Sproutly will remind you to speak with your plants twice a day and will also remind you when your plants need water. Additionally, it is an IoT object, so you will also get text notifications.

With all that said, let's get to building!

Step 1: Materials

For this project, you will need:

Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with ESP8266

Electret Microphone Amplifier - MAX9814 with Auto Gain Control

Chirp! The Plant Watering Alarm

NeoPixel Stick - 8 x 5050 RGB LED with Integrated Drivers

Lithium Ion Polymer Battery - 3.7v 500mAh

Lots of wires

1/4" Thick Translucent White Acrylic Sheet

Step 2: Circuit-building

Since the Feather Huzzah only has one analog input and there are two sensors, I've connected the microphone sensor to the analog input and the moisture sensor will be attached in through an I2C communication method.

Here is the circuit for the microphone-neopixel-feather huzzah attachment:

Step 3: Coding

Here is the code for connection between the microphone and the neopixel. The Neopixel will start blinking as a visual reminder to speak to your plants. The blinking will stop and and neopixel will turn off once it detects the sound of your voice:

Next Steps:

1. Connect moisture sensor to Feather Huzzah and write the code for Moisture Sensor-Neopixel connection.

2. Add text reminder function through IFTTT.

Step 4: From Breadboard to Final Circuit and Product Fabrication

Now it's time to make the leaf-shaped cover and solder together the circuit to insert into the final product. To make the leaf, I laser cut the a leaf shapes (2" W x 3" H) from 1/4" acrylic, where the middle pieces were framed outlines to create room for the circuit and then I glued all the pieces together in a stacked fashion.

Step 5: Final Product

Your final product should look like this:

Thank you for visiting this my Instructables post. This is a work in progress and I will be updating the rest of the components throughout the next month!