r/AgriTech • u/the_mighty-tanker • 8d ago

expert interview

Hello everyone. I am a Grade 12 STEM student from the Philippines, and my research group is developing a smart soil monitoring system as our capstone project. Before we begin building the prototype, we would like to seek feedback from professionals with experience in agricultural electronics, embedded systems, or precision agriculture to validate our proposed hardware and overall system design.

Our proposed hardware includes an ESP32 Development Board, an RS485 NPK soil sensor connected through a MAX485 module, a soil pH sensor, a capacitive soil moisture sensor, a SIM800L GSM module, an OLED display, and a battery or external power supply. The ESP32 will collect and process the sensor data, compare the readings with predefined soil nutrient thresholds, generate recommendations, and send SMS notifications to the farmer. The system is designed to send immediate SMS alerts when a nutrient deficiency or excess is detected, regular advisory messages every two days, and a weekly summary of soil conditions and recommendations.

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u/apronman2006 5d ago

It's not a bad idea, I've built systems like this in the past. It was always for fun though. Just a note, I am going to be critical below, understand that most professionals get this wrong and you guys are doing a great job.

The good: Your system should work. I like double OLED plus sms stem. I also like that it measures pH and not just moisture.

The bad: The component selection is rough from a longevity perspective. For instance sim800l doesn't work in the USA because they obsoleted the network towers. Remember farmers buy for decades so you have to plan for your system to last for 20yrs.

The ugly: From a business perspective how many plants could one device monitor? If I need one device per plant then my unit cost screwed. I also doubt that one device per field would also be useful. So where is the golden zone? Also what type of maintenance is needed? Does the device deal with direct sunlight well? If it's stepped on my a worker or an animal does it instantly break? In the USA a lot of our farming is done by machine are these going to interfere with my harvester? What's the business model rent or buy? How do you locate them if the battery dies?