So the fun started: all six locations are up and running now, with their users tapping away on their phones, testing the irrigation, fans, and windows. We are ready to start planting and we’re all waiting for spring to arrive, but hey… we live in Ireland – it could take another few days or even months for that to happen.
The ThingSpeak online service is being used to capture all incoming data from the six locations. There are two data channels assigned to each location. One channel holds the climate data (humidity, temperature, soil moisture), the status of automated devices (fans, windows, irrigation), as well as the current battery voltage. The second channel holds the data related to optimal climate values, and the status of current working mode of the enclosure.
The battery voltage drops slightly during night time, as the battery is only being charged during day time by the PV solar panels.
PS. Users, be aware of letting the fans run at night! This is where renewable energy awareness kicks in.
The value showing the last time the Arduino board inside each enclosure sent an update is being used by the phone app to display whether the system is online or offline (due to loss of GPRS data connection).
The desired optimal climate values (thresholds) can be set in the phone app, and used for monitoring purposes in manual mode, or for the Arduino board to automatically control the devices when set to automatic mode.
Simple mobile phone app interface, to allow for quick monitoring and control of the remotely located enclosure. But of course, no one is stopping us for going on location and taking a quick peek 🙂
Hey doc, what’s cooking in there?
