Spark Core Water Sensor
June 20th, 2014
I’ve been playing around with a Spark Core, which is a small, cheap ($39) Wifi-enabled Arduino-compatible device. As a software guy, I don’t do much with hardware, but the Spark Core makes it really easy to get going.
Anyways, I was able to hook up a Grove Water Sensor to it, and have it mounted near my sump pump. If the pump would ever go out, the device will send me a text message (via Twilio) to alert me.
The whole setup is pretty simple, and I’ve put all the relevant firmware and software up on Github in case anyone else is interested in doing something similar. Total hardware cost was $42, and just $1/month for Twilio.
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This looks great! I was not aware of the SparkCore. I almost started building my own version of this but decided against it as there are similar “beeping” devices on the market. Very nice to find another hobby-hacker in the world. My summer project is gardening via my Raspberry Pi: https://spin.atomicobject.com/2014/06/28/raspberry-pi-gardening/ Input is always welcome.
Love the RPi waterer. Very funny, I was actually thinking of building something similar for my next project. Will definitely get ahold of you when I start it!
The Spark (now Particle) Photon is now an even cheaper way to build this. The Photon is $19 vs the Core at $39, so total build cost is only $22.
https://store.particle.io/?product=particle-photon