The Smartest “Dumb” Sprinkler on the Block!

The Smartest “Dumb” Sprinkler on the Block!



Options Galore

There’s no shortage of smart sprinklers available—internet connected, Bluetooth enabled, learning, weather forecasting marvels! They save water and for many they are probably just right. 

But most are expensive, can be challenging to configure, may require an ongoing subscription, and might even collect your data!


The Free (and Fun!) Option

Moreover, I already have a sprinkler controller that works! It's just a difficult to use timer, but with plenty of tinkering it gets the job done.

And importantly for this endeavor, it has a spot for you to wire in a Rain Sensor! They overpriced switches allow disabling scheduled waterings when recent rainfall is detected. I believe they are sold largely to meet regulations, are seemingly rarely functioning (case in point, my HOA sprinklers run in the rain despite having a sensor "installed"), and are at best reactive. Plus, my controller was in my basement so Rain Sensor installation would require drilling a hole in my house...

Instead of a Rain Sensor, I devised to plug in an internet enabled, programmable switch that could see the future! By wiring in a relay controlled by a Raspberry Pi, I could programmatically disable the sprinklers on my command!

 

The Build

Fortunately I have a pile of Raspberry Pi's and Qwiic accessories laying around. I chose a Pi over an Arduino or similar for the full: OS, VNC, SSH, SystemD, etc., which would allow me to manage things without having to venture to the basement to reprogram anything. It would also leave me plenty of headroom for future projects, e.g. disabling sprinklers through HomeKit!

I chose DarkSky Weather API because it was reliable and free, but it has since been purchased by Apple who has announced they will soon only support weather with a current Developer Account ($). I'm looking around for alternatives.

A Raspberry Pi Zero W 2, Python and and some Qwiic modules from Sparkfun made the whole thing painless. 

Lots of details and code can be found on GitHub: Sprinkler Pi Sense


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