PLANT LIGHT MONITOR USING IoT

INTRODUCTION:

WHY WE SHOULD GO FOR THIS PROJECT?

Growing plants in full sun, especially within containers, can be challenging unless you choose varieties that are tolerant of these conditions. Many full sun plants are also tolerant of drought and arid conditions, making them ideal for potted environments too.

Why Do Plants Need Light? (The Importance of Sunlight to Plants)

Plants need food for energy, just like we animals do. The only difference is that they happen to be able to make that food for themselves. It’s a chemical process called photosynthesis and it uses the energy of sunlight to create a form of sugar from water and carbon dioxide.

What would happen if a plant gets too much sunlight?

Plants are supposed to crave sunlight, but too much sunlight can create potentially deadly free radicals. But if the plants are exposed to too much sun, these molecules absorb more energy than they can handle and generate reactive species of oxygen that can destroy the plant.

So we need a plant monitoring device that can detect the light intensity level and send feedback through Bolt Cloud or through an SMS.

ABOUT BOLT Iot:

Bolt is a fully integrated IoT platform for developers that helps them build IoT projects and products quickly and easily. It is a platform designed for Makers and Developers to build IoT projects.... Bolt also lets you quickly run Machine Learning Algorithms to predict your IoT Data as well as to detect anomalies.

Keep in mind some of the following precautions;

1. Please hold the Bolt module carefully without touching the Black ESP8266 chip in the center of the device. You can hold the device by the corners.

2. Please do NOT touch the Black ESP8266 chip or apply a lot of pressure while connecting/disconnecting wires from the pinouts of the Bolt device. Doing so may cause IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE to the Bolt device.

ABOUT PROJECTS:

USING JAVA:

LDR measures the light intensity falling on the plant. Both the data are read by the Bolt unit and send to integrant logic whenever a read request arrives. The resistance of an LDR varies inversely with light, i.e., the resistance decreases as the intensity of light falling on the LDR increases.

Connecting the LDR Circuit to the Bolt:

Connect the LDR to Bolt as shown in the image above. Note: There is no positive or negative for this and the 10k Ohm resistor. Also, make sure the Bolt module is not powered on while making connections. Always make it a habit to power off the circuit while making connections for your own and the circuit's safety. Double-check all connections before turning it on. Here are the steps for making the hardware connections:

• Step 1: Insert one lead of the LDR into the Bolt Module's 3v3 Pin.
• Step 2: Insert other lead of the LDR into the A0 pin

• Step 3: Insert one leg of the 10k Ohm resistor into the GND pin

• Step 4: Insert the other leg of the resistor also into the A0 pin
• Warning!! Make sure that at no point do the 3.3V (or even 5V) and GND pins or wires coming out of them touch each other. If you short power to Ground without a resistor even accidentally,the current drawn might be high enough to destroy the Bolt module

Thus, we are effectively measuring the voltage across the 10k Ohm Resistor and the final circuit should look like the image below:

PROJECTS WITH TWILIO(WHEN TEMPERATURE CROSSES THRESHOLD)

Twilio is a cloud communications platform as a service company. Twilio allows software developers to programmatically make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages, and perform other communication functions using its web service APIs.

Before creating a project file we should have a Twilio account. For that we’ve to log in to the official account of Twilio and creating a profile we’ll get an sms when the threshold crosses the temperature level and we’ll write a python code using bolt python library by creating an account in Digital ocean droplets.

Connecting the LM35 sensor to the Bolt

Step 1: Hold the sensor in a manner such that you can read LM35 written on it.

Step 2: In this position, identify the pins of the sensor as VCC, Output, and Gnd from your left to right.

In the above image, VCC is connected to the red wire, Output is connected to the orange wire and Gnd is connected to the brown wire.

Step 3: Using male to female wire connect the 3 pins of the LM35 to the Bolt Wifi Module as follows:

• VCC pin of the LM35 connects to 5v of the Bolt Wifi module.

The output pin of the LM35 connects to A0 (Analog input pin) of the Bolt Wifi module.

• Gnd pin of the LM35 connects to the Gnd.

The final circuit should look like the image below:

Sending an SMS when Temperature Crosses Threshold

Now we will write a Python program which will fetch the temperature data collected by Bolt and send SMS if the temperature value goes outside our specified temperature range.

Step 1: Connect the temperature monitoring circuit as we have done

Step 2: Login into the putty by entering the IP address of your digital ocean droplet.

Step 3: After successful login, create a file named conf.py which will store all the credentials related to Twilio. To create a new file type sudo nano conf.py in the terminal. After that write below code to save all the credentials in a single file.

SID = 'You can find SID in your Twilio Dashboard'

AUTH_TOKEN = 'You can find on your Twilio Dashboard'

FROM_NUMBER = 'This is the no. generated by Twilio. You can find this on your Twilio Dashboard'

TO_NUMBER = 'This is your number. Make sure you are adding +91 in beginning'

API_KEY = 'This is your Bolt Cloud accout API key'

DEVICE_ID = 'This is the ID of your Bolt device'

Note: You have to replace all the above value with your credentials. You can find the first four value in Twilio dashboard and the last two in Bolt Cloud dashboard.

We store all the credentials in a separate file since it is sensitive data which should not be shared with anyone. Hence it is a good practice to avoid using credentials in code directly. After replacing all the values, save the file using CTRL+X.

Step 4: Now create one more file named temp_sms.py. To do so you have to type sudo nano temp_sms.py in the terminal. Now we will write main code to collect the data from the Bolt and send SMS if it crosses the threshold.

The algorithm for the code can be broken down into the following steps -

1. Fetch the latest sensor value from the Bolt device.

2. Check if the sensor value is in the range specified in our min and max values.

3. If it is not in range, send the SMS.

4. Wait for 10 seconds.

5. Repeat from step 1.