FLORA, The Automated Plant Watering System [ECE443-SP26]

PCB
Sensors
Wireless Communication
ESP32
Spring 2026
Water

Designed to simplify plant care through automated monitoring and watering assistance, FLORA uses a soil moisture sensor and a built-in plant database to ensure plants receive the water they need to stay healthy. The system consists of two wirelessly connected devices, the Home/UI unit and the Pod, which work together to monitor soil conditions and deliver water as needed. The system collects new sensor data once every 30 minutes and checks it against the 10-plant database to determine if watering is needed. FLORA provides an accessible and user-friendly solution for maintaining healthier plants with minimal effort. The FLORA system uses an ESP32 microcontroller module located on its custom PCB, which allows the two devices to transmit and receive data packets using the Wi-Fi enabled ESP-Now feature. The Pod device features an ultrasonic sensor to detect the water level, and an Adafruit Stemma Soil sensor to measure the moisture within the soil. The user-interface device has two LCD displays showing information sent over by the Pod device. It also has three buttons used to navigate through the displayed information. Each device is powered by a 3.7V 1000mAh rechargeable battery which is stepped down by a 3.3V buck-boost converter on the PCB. FLORA has a lot of practical applications and can be used in a variety of locations. We designed this system to be portable and easy to use, so FLORA can go wherever it is needed. The system uses wireless communication, so the Home/UI device can be placed in a separate location from the Pod device -- allowing the user to have more freedom and flexibility. Our most notable achievements include a complete integration of the six blocks, seamless data transmission through ESP-Now, and that FLORA is working as we had originally designed back in the fall. Through a lot of communication in the beginning of the project, we were able to easily combine our individual blocks into the completed project we have now. We encountered many challenges during the timeframe of this project, the most notable being the seal of the enclosure lid on the enclosure. Due to some tolerance issues the final print of our enclosures did not fit together as we had intended. This limited our ability to maintain the IP41 rating we had set in the beginning.

1 Lifts 

Artifacts

Name Description
Project Poster This is the poster that we will have displayed at the 2026 Engineering Expo. The poster includes a summary of the project and what it accomplishes, in addition to the hardware and software that went into it. There are also images of the system, the individual devices, and the system-level PCB.   Download
Project Summary Video This video covers FLORA and it's achievements, challenges and takeaways. This also demonstrates FLORA's intended functionality.   Link
Executive Summary This is the Executive Summary for the FLORA project. It covers achievements, challenges, and next steps for future development.   Download
Project Document This is the FLORA project document. It contains all relevant information pertaining to the FLORA research, design and implementation.   Download
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