I built this soil-moisture monitor during NCSSM’s January 2025 ETSD term. The goal was straightforward: check a sensor reading locally and receive a phone alert when the soil became too dry.
A Raspberry Pi Pico W reads the moisture sensor and displays information on an LCD. Its Wi-Fi connection triggers IFTTT, an automation service, to send a notification when the reading falls below a specified threshold.
Prototype demonstration
The video shows the LCD and phone notifications working together. For this demonstration, the probe was left out of the soil, so its low-moisture reading repeatedly triggered the alert. This demonstrates the notification path; calibration and sustained testing in soil would be the next steps toward a useful plant-monitoring system.