OLED Display Gives a Plant Personality

Gediminas Kirdeikis does not have any pets, but he does have plants. While he things they are “pretty cool,” he also notes that “you can’t really create a connection between you and your plants” as you can with an animal. To help anthropomorphize his quietly growing organism, he built a custom pot with an animation that shows it’s happy when it has sufficient water, or sad when dry.

The project uses a commonly available capacitive moisture sensor to take soil readings, and an Arduino Nano for control. This runs a very simple program that monitors that sensor, and sends array of pixel colors to the plant’s tiny OLED display for animations.

The pot itself is designed in CAD and 3D-printed in two parts in “just” 22 hours. These fit together, and are glued and coated for prevent leakage. It features a slot for the capacitive sensor, along with internal accommodations for the Nano, screen, and USB cable. Some modification of the print was involved, per a too small hole for the USB, and a too big opening for the screen, so there are a few things to revise if Kirdeikisdecides to make another one.

Nonetheless, results seen at around the 9:00 mark in the video look very nice. After plugging it in and adding water, he's greeted with a happily-animated plant icon to indicate that it's sufficiently hydrated!