Hello, Smarter Lawn

A project by Stan Dotson (stan@dotson.info) and Matthew Nichols (matt@nichols.name)

Background

Why would you buy a lawn sprinkler system controller when you can just build one? And the one you build will have even more cool features!! Let’s start by first making the your sprinkler system connected to the cloud. And of course, we will need iPhone controls. Then we need to make it smart. Smart like it knows when it has rained, is raining or will rain! Smart like it can run a second watering when it gets really hot! And then of course you will want voice recognition so that you can say "Alexa, turn on my sprinkler". Now that would be really smart!!!

Description

This project contains code and instructions for how we built irrigation controllers that work with SmartThings. You can control your lawn irrigation directly from your smartphone via the SmartThings app. Also, you can set up as many schedules as you like to precisely control your lawn irrigation. Hyperlocal weather forecasts make sure you save water when it rains!!!

Project Features

• Build your own irrigation controller for SmartThings
• Flexibility to manage 1-24 irrigation zones
• Directly control from your iPhone
• Create one or more schedules to automatically run the irrigation system
• Easily over-ride the schedule
• Two options to control a master relay or pump
• A virtual rain guage that uses local weather stations to measure recent and forecasted rain and skip irrigation when rain exceeds a threshhold
• A virtual temperature guage gives you flexibility to set minimum temperature thresholds to initiate an irrigation
• Voice controls via the SmartThings integration with Alexa (Amazon Echo)
• Easty to follow documentation

There are three subprojects:

• 8 Zone Irrigation Controller
• 16 Zone Irrigation Controller
• 24 Zone Irrigation Controller

Each project inlcudes:

• Arduino sketch which transforms an Arduino and associated relays into an irrigation controller
• Smart Device Type code to connect your Arduino irrigation controller to the SmartThings Physical Graph
• README with all the step by step detail to build either project

A SmartApp works for all three projects

• Smart App allows you to schedule your irrigation and integrate hyperlocal weather forecasts
• You can install the smart app multiple times to give you nearly unlimited schedules

Enjoy, Stan and Matt