Automatic and intelligent irrigation system

1

Morning Core Electronics, sorry for messaging but I have no electronic engineering experience but I am looking to do a small project that will allow one to many units to communicate in real time in the most efficient way to a central dashboard to give live data and takes appropriate actions. The system is designed ideally to have a water reservoir at the bottom and a pump, this then activates when there is sufficient water in the reservoir and that the moisture sensors up the 6m (max) length show they are dry. This then pumps water to that section or thought the top to drip irrigate down the pillar in this instance. It would also be great to capture air quality around the pillar and temperatures. This should all be lightweight, waterproof and run from a battery that is trickle charged with a solar panel. As a bonus it would be wonderful to also have a camera unit to capture bird activity on the pillar and use AI to identify the species. Lastly as a nice to have it would be good to also have small outward cameras that would be CCTV security features. Sorry that is really quite random but having followed your videos I think you clearly know what you are taking about and could help with this project? Many thanks, James

1 Like
2

Hey @James298574,

Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for sharing your project idea, it’s really exciting! Understandably, it feels a bit overwhelming at first, especially if you’re new to electronics. The great news is you can start small and build up step-by-step.

To set expectations, this kind of project has a few layers: sensing soil moisture, controlling a pump, wireless communication, power management, cameras, and AI interaction. Each part can be a project on its own, so it’s best to start with something simple and add features as you learn.

A good place to begin is with just one sensor unit to monitor soil moisture and control a small water pump. This will let you get comfortable with:

  • Reading sensor data
  • Turning a pump on and off based on that data
  • Basic wiring and powering the components

Once that’s working well, you can think about adding wireless communication so multiple units talk to a central controller, then later include environmental sensors, solar power, and cameras.

To help you get started, here are some products you can search for on the Core Electronics website:

  • ESP32 Development Board — a versatile microcontroller with Wi-Fi, good for beginners
  • Capacitive Soil Moisture Sensor (Waterproof) — more reliable and durable for outdoor use
  • 12V Submersible Water Pump — small pump for irrigation or water movement
  • 12V Power Supply - For powering the pump
  • 5V Relay Module (1 Channel) — lets your microcontroller safely switch the pump on and off
  • USB Power Bank or 5V Power Supply — to power your microcontroller and sensors simply during testing

Once you’re comfortable with this, you’ll have a solid base to build the rest of your system.

Take it one step at a time, you’ll be surprised how quickly you pick it up!

3

Hi @James298574

To add to what @Ryan has mentioned, your project sounds like it would be a great contender for Home Assistant with ESPhome integrated into it.

You could look at for the moisture sensors using the below components as a battery powered sensor:

This could be then be integrated into Home Assistant, which would be able to take in the data from the sensors and display it on its Dashboard. It would also be capable of actuating the pumps and logging data.

Using the same components you could monitor Air Quality substituting the moisture sensor for PiicoDev Air Quality Sensor ENS160 | Buy in Australia | CE08560 | Core Electronics.

You would also be able to integrate camera feeds on the dash as well, for that I’d recommend using:

You can then also look at using Frigate NVR running on a Raspberry Pi 5 Model B 8GB | Buy in Australia | CE09786 | Core Electronics with a Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 26 TOPS for Raspberry Pi 5 | Buy in Australia | CE09994 | Core Electronics for AI object detection, this would be for the CCTV cameras that you mentioned and natively wouldn’t be able to do bird species recognition, for that though there is BirdNET-Pi that can also be integrated into Home Assistant

1 Like