If you online somewhere where summers are hot as well as dry, you can instantaneously tell which houses don’t have automatic sprinklers installed. Or they may have them installed, however like the blinking “12:00” on that VCR of yore, the owners may not have grasped the art of programming the controller. To be fair, the UI on most residential irrigation controllers is a bit wanting, which is the rationale behind letting Google calendar tell your sprinklers when it’s time to water.
Granted, somebody who is mystified by setting a digital clock is not likely to pull off [ClemRz]’s build. It’s still quite simple stuff, though, centered around an ESP8266 as it is. as well as calling the result an “irrigation system” is a bit bit of a stretch, provided that it might only support a single zone with a solenoid valve harvested from a defunct sprinkler timer. however as a proof-of-concept, or to water a little area, it hits all the marks. The ESP8266 drives the latching solenoid valve with an H-bridge chip after reading your Google calendar as well as looking for upcoming events to open or close the valve. The Google script as well as the ESP8266 code default to failsafe so that a error doesn’t leave the valve open as well as run up your water expense or drain your well.
It’s simple to see exactly how this can be broadened to manage a multi-zone irrigation system as well as support a smartphone UI for immediate manage of the valves. Overrides based on weather condition forecasts would be a nice function too. Or you might just checked out the soil wetness levels directly with backscatter sensors.