Homebridge Smart Irrigation

Turn any electrical irrigation valve into a smart-valve.. or run your pumps on a smart schedule based on your climate! This homebridge plugin exposes a multi-zone irrigation sprinkler dummy control system to Apple's HomeKit. Although a dummy, it brings smarts of an evapotranspiration based climate and plant adaptive irrigation controller with the use of OpenWeatherMap API. The plugin can optionally email you, and/or send you push notifications through Pushover or Pushcut, with the watering schedule it has calculated, or when a watering run is completed, along with the next 7-day weather forecast. Added option to expose system controls to Homekit allowing a user to enable/disable irrigation, rechecks, push and email notifications from within the Home App. Associated WaterLevel Characteristic shows the % of watering cycle remaining.

Internet of Things (IoT)JavaScriptMIT

Abstract

Homebridge Smart Irrigation is an open-source Internet of Things (IoT) project. Turn any electrical irrigation valve into a smart-valve.. or run your pumps on a smart schedule based on your climate! This homebridge plugin exposes a multi-zone irrigation sprinkler dummy control system to Apple's HomeKit. Although a dummy, it brings smarts of an evapotranspiration based climate and plant adaptive irrigation controller with the use of OpenWeatherMap API. The plugin can optionally email you, and/or send you push notifications through Pushover or Pushcut, with the watering schedule it has calculated, or when a watering run is completed, along with the next 7-day weather forecast. Added option to expose system controls to Homekit allowing a user to enable/disable irrigation, rechecks, push and email notifications from within the Home App. Associated WaterLevel Characteristic shows the % of watering cycle remaining. It is built using JavaScript. The complete source code is publicly available on GitHub under the MIT License, making it a useful reference for students building an Internet of Things (IoT) mini project or final-year project.

1. Introduction

Turn any electrical irrigation valve into a smart-valve.. or run your pumps on a smart schedule based on your climate!

This Homebridge plugin exposes a multi-zone irrigation sprinkler dummy control system to Apple's HomeKit.

Although a dummy, it brings smarts of an evapotranspiration[ETo] based climate/plant adaptive irrigation controller with the use of OpenWeatherMap API. All parameters can be configured from the Homebridge UI and the plugin offers granular control specific to every zone's individual requirements.

2. Objective

Turn any electrical irrigation valve into a smart-valve.. or run your pumps on a smart schedule based on your climate! This homebridge plugin exposes a multi-zone irrigation sprinkler dummy control system to Apple's HomeKit. Although a dummy, it brings smarts of an evapotranspiration based climate and plant adaptive irrigation controller with the use of OpenWeatherMap API. The plugin can optionally email you, and/or send you push notifications through Pushover or Pushcut, with the watering schedule it has calculated, or when a watering run is completed, along with the next 7-day weather forecast. Added option to expose system controls to Homekit allowing a user to enable/disable irrigation, rechecks, push and email notifications from within the Home App. Associated WaterLevel Characteristic shows the % of watering cycle remaining.

This project demonstrates how JavaScript can be applied to a real-world Internet of Things (IoT) problem.

4. Technology Stack

JavaScript

5. System Requirements

General requirements for this technology stack — check the README for exact versions.

  • Node.js (LTS) and npm
  • A modern web browser
  • VS Code or any code editor
  • Git (to clone the repository)

6. Installation & Setup

git clone https://github.com/MTry/homebridge-smart-irrigation.git
cd homebridge-smart-irrigation
  1. Install Homebridge
  2. Install this plugin:
  3. Homebridge Config UI X: Search for homebridge-smart-irrigation plugin and install
  4. Manually: Run sudo npm install -g homebridge-smart-irrigation from the terminal
  5. Sign up at the OpenWeatherMap website and retrieve your API key (if you want adaptive control). The free tier allows 1000 API calls a day and this plugin will make no more than a couple on any day!
  6. Gather the mean daily Solar Radiation figures for your location in kWh/day. Please read the settings section for more details
  7. Configure the settings
  8. Use the Eve app or any other Homekit controller app to setup automations for your smartplug or outlet to follow the state of the zones exposed by the plugin

Full setup instructions are in the project README.

7. Future Enhancements

Suggested extensions you can add to make this your own project.

  • Add a mobile dashboard using Blynk or Firebase
  • Store readings in a cloud database for history charts
  • Add alerts via SMS / Telegram when thresholds are crossed

8. Viva / Review Questions

Common questions examiners ask for projects in this domain.

  1. Which microcontroller / board and sensors are used and why?
  2. How does the device send data (Wi-Fi, MQTT, HTTP, Bluetooth)?
  3. Where is the sensor data stored and visualised?
  4. How is power consumption managed?
  5. How would you secure the device and its communication?

9. Source Code & License

This project is developed by MTry and published on GitHub under the MIT License. Please follow the license terms and credit the original author when you use or modify this code.

View Source on GitHubDownload ZIP

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