Let’s be honest – the hardest part about owning a houseplant is not killing it. And the hardest part about not killing your houseplant, at least for us, is remembering to water it. The Chirp! Plant Watering Alarm is a new device from wemakethings that helps extend the life of your plant by reminding you to water it.
It’s really simple to use. You just stick the inconspicuous black PCB into your plant’s soil with a CR2032 battery in it, click the button on the back to set the “dry point,” then water your precious houseplant. The device then senses the moisture in your soil and “chirps” through a piezo whenever your plant reaches that dry point again – reminding you that your plant is thirsty!
That’s just the basic function of the device. It’s also completely hackable and customizable – connect to it over I2C to interact with your Chirp! and log light and moisture data for ultimate houseplant control. Or be creative and come up with a bunch of cool plant hacks.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!