Actually, it's an old project that has been in the works for the last several months. I call them my plant sitters. I've always had plants around, but I have also always had problems keeping them watered. Not just doing the watering, but getting other people to help with the chore has been a nightmare. Nobody can decide what "dry" is. Some people will water on a schedule, others will water when it's convenient. My problem is remembering to do it at all. So a long time ago I decided these plant sitters were a must. You can buy something like this, but they cost $15-$30 and they only monitor the moisture. Mine can do more. Even though what you see is a moisture monitor, I actually built and programmed them to be able to water the plant via a pump or electric valve. When the plant needs water the led and pump come on. They go off again when the soil is wet.
In this iteration I just mounted everything on the battery case. I had originally intended to hang the whole mess off the side of the pot. That would have worked, but I was worried about the chip getting wet. This version also just has steel pins for the moisture probe. They will need replaced eventually. So far though, it's working just fine. I want to add gold plated pins and a strobing led or make this one blink, maybe in the next version. I soldered everything to a socket and hot glued it all to the battery case. I programmed an AtTiny85 chip and armed my project. Then I decided to just stick everything in a jam jar. That way everything will stay dry and it looks nice too. It's not a done project, but it is moving past the first prototype stage. I just have to add the parts to make it do what I want. I suppose actually, there will be some tweaking to do, but not too much. Now I just need to go replicate this a few dozen times.
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