Technology has come to the aid of those born without green thumbs. SparkFun’s Botanicalls Kit lets your plants tell you when they’re thirsty.
The petal-shaped chip connects to your house plant and tweets you as soon as the moisture drops. The kit consists of an Arduino microcontroller, an ethernet module and two probes that insert into soil to detect water levels. The DIY Botanicalls Kit comes with 15 small parts, plus a dozen smaller wires and hooks.
This kit truly is DIY — you’ll need a soldering iron, solder, needle nose pliers, ethernet cable, small snips, flat-head screwdriver, masking tape and a lot of patience to put this project together.
SparkFun’s Botanicalls Kit is pre-programmed, but you can customize your own Twitter reminders. The project was developed by Kate Hartman, Kati London and Rob Faludi. There are a total of 12 of these contraptions available now. At $99.95 per unit, each purchase will fund further research and development for the product.
See the video above for more details about the project. Tell us in comments whether you would be interested in something like this for your home.
Image courtesy of Sparkfun.com, Botanicalls Kit
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