I’m building a small automatic plant watering system that monitors soil moisture and activates a water pump only when the soil becomes too dry. The idea is to make a simple system that can maintain consistent moisture without requiring manual watering every day.

Hardware
ESP32 development board
Capacitive soil-moisture sensor
Small DC water pump
MOSFET switching module
Water reservoir
Flexible tubing
5V power supply
Main Problem

The biggest issue I’m currently working on is getting reliable moisture readings. The sensor values can change significantly depending on where the probe is placed in the soil, and the pump can sometimes activate too frequently when the moisture level is close to the configured threshold.

What I’m Testing
Calibrating the moisture sensor for different soil conditions
Adding an averaging/filtering system to the readings
Using separate ON and OFF thresholds to prevent rapid pump switching
Testing different watering durations
Monitoring moistu