Implementation of an Intelligent System for the Automation and Monitoring of Hydroponic Plants

Abstract

Manual monitoring of household hydroponic systems is a critical limitation for users unable to be consistently present at the site. Manual monitoring cannot continuously detect fluctuations in Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and growing medium moisture, risking physiological damage to lettuce and pak choi. This study designed, implemented, and evaluated an IoT-based smart system for real-time monitoring and automated irrigation on a household hydroponic installation in Panongan, Tangerang Regency. The study used a prototype development method with an ESP32 microcontroller integrated with a TDS sensor, a soil moisture sensor, a relay module, a water pump, and an I2C 16x2 LCD, with Blynk as the remote interface. The system applies rule-based logic: the pump activates when moisture is 60% or below and TDS is within 800-950 ppm. Testing ran over three days, data collected every 30 minutes, yielding 30 data points. The TDS sensor achieved an average error of 1.83%; soil moisture showed a maximum deviation of 4%. The pump activated automatically in all 6 triggered events, TDS remained normal in 90% of data points, moisture was restored in 100% of irrigation events, and all 9 notifications were received with an average latency of 5-6 seconds. The system is recommended for replication with further development.