IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - May/June 2022 - 56

Special Section on Consumer Technologies for Smart Agriculture
Table 1. Results for Three Months, Scenario 3.
Month
Rainy
days
June
July
9
10
Zones
A, D
(days)
9
8
August 617
Figure 5. Equipment with the microcontroller and
the humidity sensor.
sensor is shown in Figure 5. The ESP chip is powered
by solar energy.
When using sensors, the climatic parameters
make the irrigation routine more efficient. Smart
irrigation systems bring savings, in terms of
lower water waste, but they also diminish the
need for manual labor. Also, by replacing manually
operated watering systems with an automatic
one, the chances of crops dying due to
excessive or insufficient watering are minimized.
Some results are given in Table 1, for
three months in 2020, in a specific village in
Romania, where the system has been implemented.
The results correspond to Scenario 3.
It should be mentioned that zone B and C are
south-oriented, Zone A is west oriented, and
placed between two buildings, so it is mostly
shaded, while zone D has trees and is also partially
shaded. Without sensors, water waste
would have occurred in specific days when the
soil was still wet.
The results obtained for water usage have
been calculated taking into account the necessary
run time for the sprinkler system, for each
zone, the water debit of the pump, the number
of rainy days (first column in Table 1), and the
number of days when we have irrigated for each
month (third and fourth columns in Table 1).
The values presented in the last column represent
the total amount of water, corresponding to
all zones.
Regarding the price, the whole irrigation system
costs around 760 USD, including the system
inside the well, the irrigation controller, nozzles,
and piping network, while the irrigation controller
itself retails for around 70 USD. The qToggle
app is open source and free for the consumer.
In comparison, commercial vendors typically
56
Zones
B, C
(days)
11
10
19
Saved water
(mc)
22.96
24.5
14
offer their own built in system and application
packages at higher costs. This also implies a
lock-in factor for the user, as the applications
and control systems are not compatible with
other off the shelf components. As an example,
the closest similar solution we could identify on
the market is OpenSprinkler, which is an opensource,
web-based smart sprinkler controller for
lawn and plant watering. Nevertheless, just the
controller costs alone can vary between 80 and
186 USD in this case.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
In this article, we have proposed a simple, low
cost, easily scalable, smart irrigation system that
has all the above-mentioned characteristic. Our
approach can be crucial in reducing water usage
andwaste in the house, prevent unwanted flooding
or droughts, and reduce the overall time spent in
watering and caring for the garden. Further, we
have shown that by using real-life data from smart
sensors, we can incorporate weather patterns and
soil properties into the irrigation feedback loop.
Because we chose off the shelf, open components,
our system is readily available to anyone at a
reduced cost, compared to other commercial solutions.
Also, by avoiding vendor lockdown, our project
offers seamless integration with other
components and the qToggle environment, allowing
the smart irrigation system to become an
active component in the smart homewith both offline
and online control and reporting functionality.
Finally, our simple approach to both the hardware
setup and software application means most users
will easily be able to make use of our system with
little training required. In this context, we believe
our smart irrigation system, as an integral component
of the qToggle framework, can become a key
player in the smart homemarket and is in line with
current trends in consumer electronics and the
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