Pretty much what the title says - on the fence about using it, but it feels worth learning.
After the electronics course (thanks Paul and Brendon!), I’ve started a project combining my woodwork with what I learned: building a potato and onion storage box with sensors to monitor humidity, temp, and light. Future goal: detect whether onion gasses are affecting the potatoes. But mostly, to make sure a pigeon hasn’t moved in… again.
I’m trying to build fun, useful projects for growing produce on a London balcony, but every time I search for automation ideas, it’s all OpenClaw content. Obviously overkill for this project, but for future ones - has anyone actually used it? What hardware did you go with?
The appeal is getting phone alerts with a relatively simple setup, and the possibilities seem great. That said, if you think I should steer well clear, tell me that too. I need convincing not to hand over my data just because it sounds fun haha.
I think you should settle on a software platform that is robust and extensible to cover all your future needs.
Then choose a hardware ecosystem that is compatible.
I’d use Home Assistant (integrates with LOTS of hardware and software): https://www.home-assistant.io/
I’d add InfluxDB and Grafana if I found that HA data storage and display has less features than I need.
For the hardware, provided the balcony is within reach of the wifi, I’d use ESP32 devices with various monitors.
Then print cases from here: ESP32CASE models for 3D printer | Printables.com
You do not need OpenClaw or any other AI ‘solution’ for a project like that….sadly there are people pushing AI solutions for everything without understanding how AI works, or how unsuitable it is for most tasks (is you want it work), so search results is full of slop
ESP Home also might be worth looking at - I use it because it works with Home Assistant (which may be overkill for your balcony, but I can’t recommend it enough if you have anything else in your home that is smart!), but I think it can be used for standalone sensors too.
Agree with Brendon and Jonny on ESPHome for this, it’s what most people end up on for sensor nodes like this. The flashing/config side trips people up more than the HA side does though, I wrote up the whole flow here if useful: ESPHome for Home Assistant: A | Smart Home Assistant
There’s also a newer visual builder (ESPConfig Designer) for the YAML side which makes wiring up sensors like yours way less fiddly than hand editing configs, went through it here: ESPConfig Designer: Free ESPHome GUI | Smart Home Assistant
For humidity/temp/light specifically you probably don’t need Grafana at all, HA’s own history graphs plus a threshold automation for the pigeon alert gets you most of the way there without adding InfluxDB on top.