03—case study—autonomous plant pot
The autonomous plant pot is the bremay’s first case study we were working on. During the development, we went through the whole process of designing that type of physical product which was finished by the prototype itself. In the article, we briefly look inside the process and explain some of the device's features.
KEY FEATURES
Self-care mode included.
Up to six months of battery life.
From one to three months of potting water life.
Fast charging support.
Cloud-based solution.
No mobile app yet.
THE IDEA BEHIND THE CONCEPT
The idea of designing a functional concept of an autonomous plant pot came to us when solving the problem of caring for our indoor plants. Active and busy people, who we are, usually do not have enough time to take care of their home flora, thus it would be great to simplify this care. It often happened to us that we had to leave our households for a longer period and after coming back home our plants were gone. We were thinking about how we might reverse this situation. Moreover, our specialization is design and technology and the Internet of Things interests us as well. The market research shows us that there are only a very few similar devices on the market that deal with comprehensive care for indoor plants, that’s why we think there is a potential for that type of product to help people.
—an early phase of designing
SPECIFICATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT
The specification of the plant pot’s parameters was highly important in the early stages of the design. The point was to create a product concept that is eligible to autonomously work with no user interaction for the longest possible time. The only necessary user intervention in the operation will be filling up the water tank and recharging the integrated battery. It implies implementing a large-volume water tank and optimizing the system electronics for the lowest possible power consumption. At the same time, the plant pot can form a kind of smart household element, by its can user remotely monitor the home environment.
The prototype dimensions were defined based on standard dimensions of commonly available flowerpots. However, the external dimensions were also limited by the used manufacturing technology—3D printing and the actual 3D printer that we had available for prototyping. Thus the concept design was designed and optimized for production with this technology. Different types of 3D printers can work with different types of material applications and have various advantages and disadvantages. They can serve different size areas, which is related to the maximum feasible prototype dimensions. We used a printer with fused filament fabrication technology and PLA material, which is bio-plastic and belongs to ecological materials.
IMPLEMENTATION
All along the prototype development, we were trying to achieve the maximum connection between the designed hardware and the software. It means mainly the connection of hardware electronics components with the software to achieve a low consumption. The algorithm implements a plant database with predefined care parameters.
—final renders
The plant pot keeps the information about the planted plant and adjusts its behavior accordingly. The device, based on currently measured data about surrounding temperature, environment humidity, ambient light intensity, and soil humidity evaluates optimal conditions for plant prosperity. It also takes long-term data into account and at an appropriate moment executes a watering. In case the plant is not situated in a suitable environment, the device notifies the user about unsatisfactory external conditions. It sends actual data to the user’s cloud database via a Wi-Fi interface. Data storage is provided by the Google Firebase cloud database. The device also has the capability to notificate the user acoustically when there is a need to recharge an integrated Li-Ion battery or refill the integrated water tank.
—prototype
RÉSUMÉ
And here we are at the end. Through this project, we demonstrate our passion for technologies, interest in complex solutions and design. We have to admit the development process gave us joy and it was really fun. In the future, we are expecting to continue in the next projects connecting engineering with design. We hope you enjoy projects like this too and would be very grateful to leave us your feedback in our Instagram profile. Take care!