A WARNING system that tweets its owner when a plant requires swift re-leaf from lack of watering or sunlight, has been developed by three students at Glasgow Caledonian University.
The setup was created by third-year BEng Computer and Electronic Systems Engineering students Greg Larkin, Kieran Small and Scott Cairns, who decided to branch out to revolutionise the way plants are looked after.
Not only does the system provide water and artificial sunlight when required, it then tells the owner what it has done, and warns if it cannot carry out tasks.
The students were tasked to design something 'useful or helpful to people in the home' as part of a programme project, before bedding in the Automatic Plant Care System that uses sensors to monitor and maintain ideal conditions for plants.
Mr Larkin said: "We thought about what happens to house plants when the owner goes on holiday, or even if they're busy at work. A lot of plants just don't get watered or they wilt in the shade."
The system prototype houses the plant or plants in a wooden unit, which also contains water storage, a multi-spectrum light and a web cam.
Mr Larkin added: "Sensors tell the system when action needs to be taken."
He said that it is possible for the sensors to be placed in an ordinary house plant pot, which can tweet when watering or sunlight is needed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article