Perhaps you once had a dream of growing your own plants, watching them thrive and flourish, but after all the dirt-digging, tedious watering, you still failed miserably. Having a small refreshing oasis in your household is not just a dream, you just need a little bit of help!
Taking care of plants can be largely time consuming. Missing even a small scheduled task to the plant can result in drying up of the plant or even its death. Watering the plant, checking the amount of moisture in the soil are another very important and time consuming tasks. Another big problem in the houses(apartments) is the space.
But with the busy lifestyle people have less time and they don’t tend to plant trees and take care of them. As a solution to this problem, we are producing this smart pot to promote the concept, “plants as pets”. And this smart pot is also ideal for gardeners who are interested in planting plants like Bonsai where special conditions are needed.
Features in the Smart Pot
Moisture content of the soil is considered and if it is not in the desired conditions, water is pumped from the tank below.
Checked whether the plant is in the desired light intensity conditions, and if it is not the light intensity is controlled using the lamp connected to the pot
Keep track of the water level of the tank and give notifications.
Checked whether the plant is in the necessary temperature conditions.
Sample text. Click to select the text box. Click again or double click to start editing the text.
Sample text. Click to select the text box. Click again or double click to start editing the text.
Concept design
Features in the Mobile Application
Indicate all the measured plant conditions measured using the smartpot.
A feature to automate the watering process using the app according to the given notifications.
A feature to automate the light intensity control by switching on and off the light using the app according to the given notifications.
● Subscribe to other users.
● View blog entries related to plant.
● Chat with other users.
Photos can be taken from the phone at specific time intervals and a reel is made to indicate plant growth.
Notification is sent when the plant is nt in the necessary conditions and alerts.
UI/UX design-Wireframes
High Level Overview
Logical Schema
Frontend
For our frontend mobile app would be implemented using flutter. Flutter supports cross platform application development and it improves performance and flexibility of the application. Flutter uses Dart as an object-oriented programming language to create apps. The prominent features of Dart include a rich standard library, garbage collection, strong typing, generics, and async-awaits. Dart is like Java and uses a lot of the popular features of other languages too. Its reactive programming style allows developers to complete their common tasks with ease. Dart programming language, which used in flutter development is fast, simple, and can easily compile into native code. It improves the performance of the application as compared to any other app development platform.
Backend
Firebase is a powerful platform for mobile and web application. Firebase can power app’s backend, including data storage, user authentication, static hosting, and more. With Firebase, we can easily build mobile and web apps that scale from one user to one million.
In our application we will be using :
Cloud Firestore: is a flexible, scalable database for mobile, web, and server development from Firebase and Google Cloud Platform.
Authentication: provides backend services, easy-to-use SDKs, and ready-made UI libraries to authenticate users to your app. It supports authentication using passwords, phone numbers, popular federated identity providers like Google, Facebook and Twitter, and more.
Cloud Storages: is for object storage service built for Google scale. The Firebase SDKs for Cloud Storage add Google security to file uploads and downloads for your Firebase apps, regardless of network quality. You can use SDKs to store images, audio, video, or other user-generated content.
Real-time Database: is a cloud-hosted NoSQL database that lets you store and sync between your users in real-time. The Real-time Database is really just one big JSON object that the developers can manage in real-time.
Sensors & Actuators
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
For any system it's crucial to pay attention to the security aspects. No system can be automatically immune. If we don’t consider this seriously, the impact and recoveries can be very expensive.
Looking from the perspective of the CIA triad,
Availability is necessary because the system mostly works 24/7 and the whole entrace system of the country depends on it. If the system is not available the effects can be very significant.
Confidentiality also plays a major role as we handle sensitive data. Only the authorized people should be able to see the data.
Integrity is necessary because if the data is modified without the knowledge of authorized people, it can break trust of people towards the system. Imagine providing inaccurate health details to people!
What are the sensitive data that needs to be secured?
Any system that handles PII(Personally Identifiable Information) or SPII(Sensitive Personally Identifiable Information) or any Health Care data, are legally obligated to protect these data. If these information are compromised it can lead to devastating consequences like identity theft incidents, high risk of damage to a individual, loss of trust on the system and many more.
Our system keeps personal details about people like full name, address, contact details, ownership details. These data have high criticality. When such system is deployed, many attackers try to play with the data since the data can be of interest to many. For example if a person can access to someone else's mobile app, he can checkin to places pretending to be someone else. If our database is compromised it can lead to a data breach which will expose all the PII details of the community. This can even result in Ransomware attacks.
| What will be tested? | Why it is important? | Tools will be used to test |
|---|---|---|
| Backend | Backend functionality of the system is crucial for a working software | 
|
| Functionality of mobile application | Proper functionality of the app is also important for preventing any system bugs. | 
|
| Hardware devices | The data captured by the hardware components should be sent to the cloud server. | 
|
| Frontend - Backend - DB Connectivity | Athentication, Authorization Security features - Throttling |
|
| Item | Quentity | Unit price (LKR) | Cost (LKR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ESP32 microcontroller | 1 | 2,290.00 | 2,290.00 |
| Capacitive Soil Moisture sensor | 1 | 260.00 | 260.00 |
| Water level depth detection sensor | 1 | 120.00 | 120.00 |
| LDR light sensor module | 1 | 160.00 | 160.00 |
| 2.4-inch TFT LCD Display | 1 | 3,400.00 | 3,400.00 |
| DS18B20 Digital Temperature Sensor Probe | 1 | 420.00 | 420.00 |
| Mini Water pump | 1 | 280.00 | 280.00 |
| 1W LED | 2 | 60.00 | 120.00 |
| Wires, Circuit board, pot and other components | 2,356.00 | 2,365.00 | |
| Total | 9,415.00 |
E/18/154
E/18/327
E/18/349
Senior Lecturer
Senior Lecturer
