Basic watering system for balcony

[blairthornton]

Fresh newbie to automation wishing to design a basic watering system for my balcony. Cost is an issue, so as simple and small as possible is what I'm aiming for. Want to use only Home Assistant software with Atlas Scientific sensors and pumps.

So far, just have a 4Gb Raspberry Pi 4 B (safe from direct rain, but located outdoors), booting off USB 3 and powering it with a Raspberry Pi PoE+ HAT. I have a Ubiquiti US-8-60W switch with 3 802.3af PoE Ports available so I can power the Pi outdoors over POE. Is this case too small for all I need to add? https://sixfab.com/product/raspberry-pi ... enclosure/

Thinking of two pumps, 1 for tomato plants, 1 for everything else (peas, beans, etc.).

Hoping to use Soil Moisture Sensors h[url]ttps://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B071F4RDHY/ref ... uage=en_US[/url] to detect when plants need to be watered, and then turn on pumps https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Scientific ... 323&sr=8-2 until water is detected at sensors and then let run for 30 seconds.

Was thinking I could use Flow EZO's from this kit https://atlas-scientific.com/kits/1-2-flow-meter-kit/ and mounting a couple of Flow EZO's on a Atlas Scientific Whitebox T3 https://www.amazon.ca/Whitebox-Labs-Ten ... 248&sr=8-3 but I can't find BNC to Flow Connector board cables. I'm sure they exist. Hoping to avoid flow EZO's because of their cost, and just use pumps and soil moisture sensors.

Wiring a single Soil Moisture Sensor is described here http://www.piddlerintheroot.com/soil-moisture-sensor/ but I want to wire 5 of them and use a POE Top hat, so I don't know how this is done. Do you use a sensor bridge https://atlas-scientific.com/carrier-bo ... or-bridge/ for this? If so, how then do you wire the sensor bridge to a Pi with POE top hat?

Would prefer to not use USB 2 ports to control the pumps, but will if necessary. How do I wire (and power) the pumps to the Pi?

I find designing this stuff very confusing and I'm not sure what hardware I should be choosing.

Any advice on how to connect pumps and soil moisture sensors, and if necessary flow meters to a Pi 4 B would be appreciated.

Gee, also wish you had a e-commerce site that sold small waterproof 3-D printed boxes to house soil moisture module boards!

Blair from Toronto - newbie to this. Thanks in advance.

[stud]

I use xiaomi miflora + esp32 for soil moisture .
Esp32 gets the data from the sensors via Bluetooth and sends the data to HA via WiFi . This is a very simple built no wiring or coding .
Xiaomi miflora are not rated for outdoor but I've used them last summer with no issues , the sensor battery door got a silicone seal , just make sure it's nice and straight to avoid water leaking in .
I currently run 6 per esp32 with no issues .
To turn pumps on/off I'm using 1 sonoff s31 running tasmota per pump .
This way you can keep your rpi running HA inside the house away from water monitoring and controlling soil moisture .

Example : https://youtu.be/M3qr4PVtuCc
EspHome : https://esphome.io/components/sensor/xiaomi_ble.html

[blairthornton]

Thanks Stud. This looks like a good way to go

I don't need the ESP32 Wi-Fi if my Pi 4 is (inside) and only 5' away from sensors on balcony, do I?

I could just use the Pi 4's bluetooth right?

[blairthornton]

Progress to date ... booting off of USB. Installed Home Assistant Supervised so I can also run Desktop, SSH and VNC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWTWsN4yYc&t=610s

Added POE hat for powering outside, Outdoor enclosure, and added 6ch relay hat.