Smart Controller & Smart Tent

[Zeca-do-Jardim]

Hi guys,

I'm currently developing a smart controller prototype that measures light intensity, temperature, humidity and co2. I will be able to set my lights schedule, desired temperature and humidity inside the tent. The controller will have 8 electric sockets (lights, outlet fan, inlet fan, oscillating fan, dehumidifier, humidifier, heater and 1 extra socket just in case I'll need it for something later) and it will also have an ip camera. I'll be able to control everything with my phone and I will also be able to see my garden 24/7 plus I'll be able to take photos, record videos and time-lapses directly to my phone, tablet, computer, hard disk, cloud, etc. It will also have an LCD on the box where I can read all the information and change the settings manually there.

This will be programmed to use all the equipment mention above but it will also work if you only have 1 or 2 products (light and outlet fan for example). Making it an option for everyone, if you're starting and you only have basic equipment, it will do the job with what you have. If you already have all the equipment to guarantee stable growing conditions (or if you're planning on buying the rest of the equipment later) this all in one controller will make your life much easier while guaranteeing you a top quality bud. This controller will send you notifications if the temperatures go too high or too low, the same goes for humidity. It will also send you a notification if something is not running properly.

Since this is a prototype for a potential product to sell, I would like to know if you're interested in this type of technology? Also, is there anything I'm missing that you would like to add? My goal is to automate as many tasks as possible so I can (and if everything goes according to plan, later you will be able too) guarantee that I can grow top quality weed without consuming me a lot of time. For the ones interested, how much are you willing to pay for a product like this? Would you prefer a cheaper lower quality product or a better more expensive option?

If I feel there's a market after testing and launching this product and with all the user's feedback, my goal is to use the money of the smart controller to develop a smart tent for organic growing. Combining HID & LED with a water tank, nutrients tanks, mixing tank, fans, heater, cooler, humidifier, dehumidifier. It will measure literally everything, even the pH of your soil. It will measure and correct your solution's pH and EC before watering. You'll be able to choose how many ml/L you want for each nutrient. All this being extremely efficient and using as little electricity as possible. I still don't know the measurements of the tent as I'm still studying a few topics and running some tests with the knowledge I currently have. This product will be tailored for the people who choose to smoke organically and want to choose which strains to smoke. It will consume very little of your time and it will be a very cheap option compared to buying weed from your dealer all year round. Plus, if you live in a place (like me) where Cannabis is still illegal you don't need to buy from dealers anymore.

I'll ask exactly the same questions for this product. Are you interested in this type of technology? Is there anything you would had it and/or remove it? How much money are you willing to pay for a product like this? Would you prefer a cheap lower cost product or a good quality higher price option?

I'm very eager to know your opinions and I'm looking forward to making grow high quality cannabis an easy option for everyone.

Kind regards and happy grows,
Zeca-do-Jardim

 

[Zeca-do-Jardim]

I just want to be sure and say that I am only building a prototype for myself. I'm just trying to gather as much feedback as possible and understand if there are more people interested in having this problem solved as I am. I'm not trying to advertise anything here, for that I already have my strategy defined once I have the final product finished.

 

[mcattak]

Trolmaster beat you to the punch

 

[GMT]

Air conditioning, toaster.

 

[f-e]

There would be very little demand for such a product. Many people don't even use a timer. However a number of alarms would be nice. Like moisture level... of the carpet. Motion detection.. of the police. EC/pH of tank and runoff. All on a second box, because the first one will break one day.

 

[ridoo]

feedback : you have here a forum full of feedback, you only need to read it

I was once into automation and probing and monitoring things and so on, goes with Grove and Arduino parts and it's very easy to build and code.

but if you want something really automated around 5 plants you need a lots of parts, many of them are small and not really made to be used in wet or windy or very hot conditions and so on... then you need to caliber everything and adjusting to each weather change... or you build a sealed bunker with air conditioner, but then your 5 plants looks like, hum, 5 salad in a space station, and you care more about the space station than the plants.... lol

even professional growers you can study here you'll find that they trust more some good timers and strong water pump than computerized probed room...

what about if the switch control of that water pump turn off because of a bug in the coding ? most growers hardly try to keep good temp, right ph and ec, and sure not being infested by red spiders... but it's another story... can you build red spiders detectors and tiny laser guns turrets ?

Maybe you can sold this to some geek otaku growers in Japan or Korea.

I agree this is a funny hobby, but I doubt about marketing stuff.

Build one closet, fully automated, 5 plants from seeds to flowers, make it real and share with us.

 

[LNG]

For me it's all about motherly love and observation, can't automate that really....
But I do agree about mini lasers - those would be handy, if you could maybe make them in to tiny flying aircrafts so no leaves get damaged in the process - I would totally buy that

 

[Zeca-do-Jardim]

Thanks for the heads up about the competition. already doing a little research about them

 

[Zeca-do-Jardim]

GMT I think I'm doing with a coffee machine too

 

[Zeca-do-Jardim]

f-e why do you think there would be very little demand? I think if you grow weed without timers you're not even growing weed to me. You're growing something else that gives you a little buzz. Definitely, this is not the market I want to target. My audience and experienced growers or new growers that want to take growing seriously in order to get top quality weed without spending a lot of time.

What do you think about a smart tent? Would you be interested?

 

[Zeca-do-Jardim]

ridoo first of all, thank you very much.

So do you know any posts about automation in this forum? If you already know a few, I would kindly ask you to share them with me so I can start reading them.

Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? In your experience what were your biggest obstacles to overcome? Which components tend to break/drown/melt more easily? So what would be the perfect size for 5 plants?

Regarding the smart controller that won't be a problem. About the smart tent, I haven't thought about it. Can't you write an automated techy code and have a manual backup setting in case the code is bugged?

AHAHAHA If knew I would build the turrets.

What makes you doubt the marketing?

Totally agree with you, that's the plan! I will also post photos here once I have the controller running.

 

[Zeca-do-Jardim]

LNG I know what you mean that's why I want to build a smart tent for organic growers instead of hydro. The thing is I can watch them 24/7 without the need of being there constantly plus it gives me a lot more "free time" and the best is that the plant enjoys it too since you can have stable temperatures and RH from seedling to harvest

 

[midwestkid]

I think an automated tent would be pretty cool.
Maybe just one that dialed the temp and humidity levels and held them stable. I wouldn't really be interested in anymore bells and whistles then that.
I know the parts and pieces are out there, but if this was all sold as one self contained unit I'm sure it would sell.

 

[ridoo]

just do a search with "arduino" and another with "VPD" for examples and ideas


the main obstacle for me was the terrible instability of the weather in my area and the fact that i cant seal the room in which the closet sit nor the closet himself, so the time i set parameters in the variable of the controlling sh*t... it was already another temp and RH and so on...

another one was that in fact the "care" part of the growing process is sometimes the good part to, it's the time i share with the plants, and also, maybe, i don't want to rely so much on electronic parts for my dope plants

 

[f-e]

Many can run for 5-7 days, but want to see that everything is alright. Photo's never lie, as they say.

Automation needs to be done with baby steps. Automate a process, master it, then look at the next step. I put a thread up about automatically filling the tank as a starting point. Just a $20 project but I don't think there were any takers.

Most kit is perfectly fine on it's own timer or controller. De-hu's and hummers. Heaters and cooling. Lighting timers. Irrigation timers. Dosing systems. They are all compartmentalised topics. Bringing them all together onto a Computer is an extra item that's more than a timer or thermostat. It's frankly a problem. It's only real use would be in dosing calendar values. There is no map available to you though. Each plant needs dialing in and it's still only learning what might happen. Nobody knows what to mix for day 34 until day 33. Or rather, that is the actual job. Mapping the plants for next time, but you will never get identical grows. The job of automation is full time.

Many people would like to get a weeks run-time for holiday purposes. Generally a bigger tank will do. However we all want to have a secure look at things. To see the run-off in action perhaps. Look in the talk at $40 constant submersion meters. Light height. The min/max. The actual plants...

 

[f-e]

On a parallel topic, the cost of running environmental control is often greater than growing the plants. Which is itself producing as much co2 as driving 5 miles, per spliff. We don't want to double that. Cali's power use is 3% pot, that they know of. A law to force LED use not HID's is planned there.
Without tight regulation, the days feed values have to be corrected for how far along they really are. Plus temp&rh. Runoff. It's a lot of mapping. At which point online feed injection gets interesting, so that EC changes can be made as storms roll in.

The only thing wrong with sun grown weed is peoples perceptions of it. Indoor should return to 'under the table Skunk Weed' and the rest grown outdoors, cheaply. Like corn.

 

[ridoo]

lol f-e

finally the smart tent wont make a smart grower

can't imagine the carbon print of a gram of weed from a connected tent....

 

[LNG]

f-e why do you think there would be very little demand? I think if you grow weed without timers you're not even growing weed to me. You're growing something else that gives you a little buzz. Definitely, this is not the market I want to target. My audience and experienced growers or new growers that want to take growing seriously in order to get top quality weed without spending a lot of time.

What do you think about a smart tent? Would you be interested?

I am a fairly new grower, indoors. I have timers, but that's about the only automation that there is. And trust me - the stuff is potent enough.
Your product would target industrial operations much better that a small time grower.

Whatever robotics you put in your small time tent, it will not read how the plants feel. It will only control the environment.

There are so many different variants, for example:
If the tent is in the loft you will struggle with heat, if in the basement you will struggle with cold and/or damp. The way you combat this issue is by automated air conditioning system that will read and regulate temperature as well as humidity - but oh my dear lord, the cost to install this is immense for a small time tent. And even if you do install one – there are so many things that can go wrong with them depending on multitude of factors, like tripped compressors, condensers not liking ambient temps, clogged filters, leak in system etc…

Timers: as you will know, it is not on the day X that we switch over from veg to bloom. Again, one would observe if in their opinion plant is ready. For example I veg under my LED so it takes longer but I find that they grow a bit sturdier and when they are ready in my opinion is switch them to flower. It varies per strain/temp/weather that affects environment in the area where I keep my tent.

Nutrients - how will your machine know what your plant wants? Growers tell this by the way the plant looks, how form, and even then even experienced ones buds do not always know and ask for help.
Nutrients – what if for any reason plants are stunted? What if there is some seeds which genetically are not as strong as the others in same pack? How will this automation device will know what kind of care each plant needs?

What ifs? What if something goes wrong? Fuse blows, a pump jet clogs, you get pests (fungus gnats for example) you lose power from the grid? Which a sensor in every single place and full 4k camera on each plant (human eye is more sensitive than that) what will be the cost of this invention and how much computing power will you need to process this data?

Also obviously this will run via code and cloud/accounts, how can you guaranty our data security, I’m sure that there are eyes that we do not want watching our grows.

Starting to grow is not such a hard job and we learn and get better by things going wrong.
And there are plenty small and big time growers that produce amazing bud without much automation and most of them have heaps of knowledge and experience, how can there be an AI to replace that?

 

[pahval]

Im developing one also, i may help out...



My platform:


Per growbox:


Master esp32
Light controller arduino nano
Nutrient controller arduino mega
Sensor node arduino nano


Up to 255 grow areas, openhab on raspberry pi for web and android interface


It has:


Time tracking, logs, timers for light have far red/infrared timer and uv pulse mode timer (x min on y min off z times in middle of main light schedule), nutrient mixing with h202 cleaning of a whole system (still need to do this portion of code), temp/hum control... I have all on paper, almost all of environment controller code (light, temp/hum, co2, need to implement sd card), still need nutrient controller code and import to openhab (im waiting version 3)... My main goal is to have cheap (500 instead of 3000 usd) controlled gb for med patients, husstle free highly tuned hydroponic system for perpetual grow... I can suggest to check out mycodo project and diy automated growboxes on youtube...

 

[pahval]

All open source, of course...