ESP8266 And Arduino MEGA Based WiFi Plant Monitoring System

In this blog, we will teach you how to keep a check on a plant’s growth and development with Arduino MEGA and ESP8266. The parameters kept in check by this system includes illuminance, temperature, soil moisture, and surrounding temperature. The ESP8266 v01 wifi module will play a key role in monitoring these parameters through internet.

The equipment needed for this experiment is Arduino MEGA 2560, DHT22, USB cable, YL-69 Analogue soil moisture sensor, a set of dupont cables, Number 3 10K Ohm resistors, breadboard MB-102, photoresistor, Waterproof thermistor, LD-33V voltage regulator, and bi-directional logic level translator. Take care of the fact that the ESP8266 wifi module will work only with a 3.3V power supply but the ports from Arduino serial will work only with 5V. This is why you will need a logic level translator between wifi module and ESP8266.

Another important consideration needs to be given to the voltage regulator. Because the ESP8266 needs more than 35mA supply from Arduino 3.3V source you will need to connect the 5V with the voltage regulator and take benefit of larger supply of Ampere sent through this power source.

In order to connect the ESP8266 properly, you will need to take care of two things the logic level translator and the voltage regulator. The logic level translator will be needed to make the ESP8266 function properly. Reason being, the Arduino digital signals will have their values somewhere between 0-5V and represent 0 & 1 respectively. ESP8266, however, uses 0V and 3.3V. If you are not using the logical level translator, it will damage your WIFI module. The logic 0V and 3.3V generated from ESP8266 wouldn’t lead to any damage but might be interpreted incorrectly by Arduino. Next you will have to send the data to thingspeak. To pursue this task you will need a good understanding of codes and their working. The code here is a complex element. Once you are through with it, you can work on adding the sensor to the basic sketch of the setup.