I’ve just finished work on the prototype of the moisture sensor. As I type, it’s sitting, powered by batteries, with it’s probes in a hanging basket, sending data to my server in the cloud.
Inside the large tuppaware box there is a 4xAA battery box, from a defunct string of Ikea Christmas lights. This powers the breadboard which still has an FTDI converter plugged into it, along with the ESP8266 ESP-12 in it’s freshly breadboard ready formfactor. The moisture sensor it’s self is a cheapo ebay special and very prone to all sorts of horribleness. Which is why I’ve powered it from a digital pin on the ESP-12, so I can keep it powered on for only as long as I need to.
It’s working, it’s sending data, the scale is wrong, and I don’t like Tupperware, but other than that I’m super happy with it.