Posted by CloCkWeRX on November 03, 2026 at 08:00 · 2 min read and edited at November 03, 2026 at 08:19
PermalinkI have:
- Home Assistant
- Sonoff Zigbee Irrigation Controllers - significantly cheaper and just darned well work, compared to the Bunnings Holman/Tuya nonsense. I'm allowed to say that, as a maintainer of the support for Holman in localtuya.
- A number of cheap soil moisture sensors - mostly used indoors, but a few are ruggardised and set up outside
- Home Assistant - Growstuff integration, which is really just a way to generate one area per garden bed and get the job/activity list available to my automations
- Some weather forecasting integration setup with weather condition alerts.
- Mail and packages, for the random supplies I buy. Reverse vampire rules, it's very important to know when blood and bone arrives at your door.
- A numbering system for the 15+ beds/growing areas so mapping into growstuff is easy to keep track of.
- and most importantly, Mealie
While not perfect, this means I get proactive alerts of when rain is due, storms are coming or heatwaves. While growing, I can water based on actual soil condition measurements
At the end of the growing cycle as I harvest, I can use Mealie to suggest what to do with the produce - pro tip; confit your tomato, can your salsa/coriander, and pickle your onions and kolhrabi
I think the only thing that would make my life easier is a proper weeding robots - https://www.amazon.com/stores/Tertill/page/AF6AF96A-5612-469C-AD7D-5BA473A9D874 is defunct, https://carbonrobotics.com/ is too big :(
I am vaguely tempted to add cameras; or some way to tumble compost automatically; and have bitten the bullet to get a full weather station as of a few days ago.
What do other tech folks do?
2 comments
Wow this is cool.
I had a pretty good automation system. But in 2023 we had renovations that removed all my old wires out if the house to power actuators of valves. And I never reinstated them.
Ever since I've been watering by hand every morning. And there's something very good for my soul about needing to go outside every morning, and water by hand.
Wellington is very windy, so it's easy to just stay indoors for days or weeks at a time. But getting outdoors despite the weather is good for my mental health.
I have to admit, I have push notifications JUST TO BE SURE the watering system actually did what it said it would.
The new jobs system is helping me - there's been more than a few weekend adventures on a cargo bike to scavenge cardboard for sheet mulching or logs for hugelkulture beds as a result of actually re-setting up a proper TODO list.