Claudia Nassif and Sylvie Baslers are green enthusiasts with a passion for bringing gardening into the digital age. With their team of engineers and designers the pair has developed a sensor to help plants realize their full potential. The FYTA Beam is a smart plant sensor that 'gives your plant a voice,' and currently running a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.
The FYTA Beam measures soil moisture, nutrition, light intensity, and temperature. The sensor will monitor the plant's environment and send the user an alert when change needs to happen. Design constraints during the Beam's development included a small profile, accuracy of measurement, customization for different plant sizes, customization of the sensor's visuals, and renewable energy dependence. The sensor is 90 millimeters long and 34 millimeters wide before the stainless steel probes are added in, and the system runs on a rechargeable lithium coin battery. The FYTA app is compatible with iOS 11 and newer, and Android 5.0 and newer. The app gives the user the ability to identify plants, build a virtual collection of the plants in your garden, contains tutorials for the best possible plant life, and the notifications can be customized to the user. A mockup of the app is available on invision, and a live demo video is on the campaign page.
We're approaching a time when most of the things we see as hobbies can jump on board the smart tool, internet of things trend. The nutrition sensor is novel for this application but I imagine that most engineers could easily find uses for thermometers, moisture sensors, or light sensors in their homes. Combining them all together and using them for healthier plants is a noble goal. As of this writing the campaign is not yet successful and ends on June 23, 2019.