Plants Use Twitter to Tell You to Water Them

ptorrone noted a Make article about twittering your plants just in case you need that sort of thing in your life. And you do. He says "The gang from Botanicalls used one of Adafruit's new open source hardware ethernet shields for Arduino (open hardware too) to make some plants talk — and now you can too! That's right, having your houseplants Twitter you when they need water and more! You can see what one of the plants is doing now..."

Just what every household needs..

Their very own highly opinionated /. troll, complete with an infinite supply of hot air, a built in watering reminder, and an obstinate refusal to just die. If you want to make sure that the watering reminder works you must make sure not to leave any Microsoft related products around though, otherwise the ranting could distract him for days!

Marijuana Plant

Says,
"Dude, roll me...."
"Dude, nice roll. Not too tight on ends or loose in the middle."
"Dude, you're burning me now. Huh, huh, huh...."

Re:

Hehehe.. it's like the UK police using YouTube to bust guys who record themselves speeding - recently they got one guy who was driving at 120mph while using one hand to hold the camera - not the most sensible thing anyone's ever done is it? In this case th

tag: sensless

tag this one as "senseless"

jeez...

Re:

I was trying to think of some very intelligent or funny comment about this article.

I got nothing.

--
got to go now, my cactus is twitting.

This is nothing

We've got vegetables and fruits doing development.

Rather than have the plant call you...

...why not have it hooked into a watering system directly? That way all you need to do is make sure the reservoir has water in it. Seems a lot less intrusive, and you don't have any potential phone bills from your plant.

Re:

The actual mission is to improve the communication between human and plant. Who knows what would happen if you'd make the plants independent from the humans..

Ah, hence the slippery slope. Eventually someone will figure out a way to get plants to post

Hard plants

They used an ornamental pepper and a pothos? They're simple, just water them every week or so. What would be impressive is if they worked a system for a hard plant, like a Pseudolithos, that would take humidity, time of year, soil type, ect. into consideration when telling you when to water.

Re:

they already have such systems for them, They range from simple (Bright red LED blinking in your plant), to advanced systems that sms your phone. far more effective than the silly design in the article and commercially available.

I've heard of...

People talking to their plants... but their plants talking to them? What is this Soviet Russia?

If my plants start talking to me it means I need to go away for a little vacation...

Arduino is a great platform

I've got no electronic/IT background at all (I'm a lab tech), but even I could mess around with an arduino and get it to work. My GF is using one in an art project to have bag that analyses RFID tags from supermarket food and change the appearance of the bag depending on how ecologically you shopped.

I'm thinking of trying to use an arduino and my home music/movie server PC to make a cheap version of Philips 'Wake up light' [amazon.co.uk]. I was thinking of using it to control a stepper motor hooked up to a dimmer switch, but maybe someone here (with real electronics knowledge) can hint at a better way to do this?

Re:

Use a triac [wikipedia.org] to build your own dimmer circuit and control it directly.

Re:

Certainly, though the details depend on the kind of light; since you say a dimmer, I'll assume you mean a normal 120V incandescent. It would be easier with LEDs or low voltage DC lights, harder with fluorescents.

Warning: this is a high voltage circuit.

Just say NO

Okay, today I saw in order:

1) Tabletop home aeroponic "herb garden"
2) Upside down hanging "tomato" grow bags

Now this?

Re:

1) Tabletop home aeroponic "herb garden"

I actually have one of those [aerogrow.com] in my apartment. It's really neat. The light is on an 8 hour timer and the water pumps up into the sponge the different plants are growing into. It adds a unique aesthetic to the apartme

They don't want water....

'cause water is from the toilet. Brawndo [brawndo.com]'s got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Demanding...

From Twitter
URGENT! Water me! 06:29 PM February 22, 2008 from web
Water me please 06:27 PM February 22, 2008 from web

Yeah, that's just what I need - a needy plant pinging me every couple minutes.

When are you coming home! 06:31 PM
Does this vase make me look fat? 06:32 PM
Why are you ignoring me?!? 06:32 PM
We need to talk. 06:35 PM
You know what you did! 06:36 PM

Re:Demanding...

ferti1izer enlarge stem 2 to 4 inches! 06:39 PM

That's why mine keep dying

Is that device basically a moisture gauge that calls you? If so, your plants aren't saying shiat. Keep playing the Mozart though, they like that.

Botanicalls was developed to provide a new way for plants and people to communicate in order to develop better,

The Exciting World Of Plants!

6am: Huh?
7am: Photosynthesizing
8am: Photosynthesizing
9am: Photosynthesizing
10am: Photosynthesizing
11am: Photosynthesizing
noon: Photosynthesizing
1pm: Photosynthesizing
2pm: Photosynthesizing
3pm: Photosynthesizing
4pm: Photosynthesizing
5pm: Photosynthesizing
6pm: Photosynthesizing
7pm: The dark! The dark! Oh woe! Do not go gentle into that good night! Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
8pm: no activity
9pm: no activity
10pm: no activity
11pm: no activity
midnight: no activity
1am: no activity
2am: no activity
3am: no activity
4am: no activity
5am: no activity
6pm: Huh?

Insanely expensive, not "open source"

The Adafruit "shield" uses a $50 (yes, $50) Xport module, which is anything but "open source".

So. $10 for the circuit board, $50 for the module, and then another $30-$40 for the Adruino board.

That's $100 not including shipping...plus the cost of a wall-wart power supply ($10+), ethernet cable ($10-20) and an ethernet port (a couple more dollars- you can get hubs pretty cheap these days)

You could easily hit $150-200 on this project for just getting to know that 2 of your plants need water, something you can figure out by sticking your fucking finger in the soil each morning.

For cats, too.

Wake up. 5:30 am
I said, wake up. 5:31 am
Feed me. 6:30 am
Feed meh! 7:30 am
Feed me again. 7:40 am
No, not that, get me treats. 7:41 am
Feed me. 8:00 am
URGENT: Litterbox is full. 8:15 am
Piss off. 8:30 am
URGENT: Litterbox is rank. 8:31 am
Hey, where are you going? 8:32 am
Why are you going out the front door? 8:33 am
Feed me? 8:34 am
Feed me? 8:36 am
(sleeping) 8:38 am
(sleeping) 12:01 pm
(sleeping) 4:30 pm
(sleeping) 6:00 pm
HI! HI! WELCOME BACK! PET ME! 6:02 pm
Feed meh. 6:03 pm
URGENT: Litterbox is REALLY rank. 6:04 pm
I did not knock that over. 6:05 pm
Why you always can has blame me? I are too cute. 6:06 pm
Piss off. 6:10 pm
(sleeping) 6:11 pm
(sleeping) 9:00 pm
(sleeping) 12:10 am
Knockin' stuff off the countertops. 1:05 am
(sleeping) 2:00 am

Re:Yeah, like my plants need to remind me to water

If you can't grow anything, I suggest you get an Opuntia. I haven't watered a few of mine since early December, and they're fine. Of course, the glochids [answers.com] will make your life miserable if you touch them, but they're still pretty cool and most species are fairly easy to grow (not all easy though; O. microdasys and some others can be hard). As long as the soil drains and drys quickly, you don't overwater it, and it gets enough light, pretty much anyone can grow one. If you can't grow an Opuntia, you probably can't grow anything. Everyone on Slashdot should have an Opuntia.

Re:

One of them (O. ficus-indica) is edible, but since I just got it about a year ago as unrooted pads, really I don't know how often it will set fruit. If you really want to know, you can ask people wiser than myself on this forum [gardenweb.com] or this one. [thegardenforums.org] If you didn't