Project overview

The project introduction post describes the Garden133 project: solar-powered outdoor monitoring devices for measturing soil moisture levels in your yard and garden, and a custom base station that bridges LoRa communiction from the yard to a local Home Assistant instance.

Hardware design

Design of the hardware, including the PCBs for the satellite sensor units and the base station, the waterproof 3D-printed enclosure, and solar power, are described in Garden133 Hardware Design. This includes a detailed writeup about creating battery/solar systems and component selection for low-power operation.

Firmware design

The firmware for the project is descirbed in Garden133 firmware. It describes

• Using ESP32 deep sleep for saving power, and
• Using the Home Assistant MQTT Discovery protocol. 

 It also describes the use of my og3 C++ framework, designed especially for ESP devices working with with Home Assistant.

Radio communication

My post on Radio Communication describes the use of LoRa radios, the radio settings selected, and the custom protocol based on Protoco Buffers I made for satellite units to communicate with the base station.