The $300 Lettuce : Building a Smart Garden
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-300-lettuce-building-a-smart-garden-c048c0e1a51?source=rss----3a8144
A few months ago, a very generous friend of mine gave me a fantastic gift, my very own Raspberry Pi 3B+. For those who are unfamiliar, a Raspberry Pi is a small and affordable computer which can also be connected to sensors and other electronics.The first challenge was deciding what to do. I’m always looking to extend my skills as a software developer, and I’d been toying with the idea of growing some vegetables. Receiving the Raspberry Pi was exactly the impetus I needed to start a project: a smart hydroponic garden system, with automated alerts, data analysis and maintenance.Spoiler Alert: If you’re only looking to grow food, this project isn’t particularly efficient. Applying computing to a small home garden is time consuming, sometimes costly, and doesn’t necessarily improve yield. (...)