Listen To Your Plants With Twitter
Sun, 11 May 2008
Talking plants eh? There are no doubt some who fervently believe that talking to plants makes them grow better while I’d argue that plants seemed to get on just fine for millions of years before us chattering monkeys loped along. Still, let’s keep an open mind, and wallet, here.
Meet Adafruit’s Botanicalls Twitter Kit which allows your leafy friends to contact you over the Net or via text messages on your mobile when it needs help. And, after you’ve come running with the emergency watering can, it will even send you messages of love. The makers say:
"The Botanicalls Twitter kit includes all the hardware you need to create a networked communication system for your plant. A moisture sensor placed into the soil will send information to simple electronic detection circuitry you solder together yourself. Twitter updates are then sent out via an onboard Ethernet connection to the Internet, where they can be viewed online or routed to your mobile phone. Previous soldering experience is not required, and complete instructions are available online with detailed photos showing each assembly step."
The Twitter kit costs around £80 here and frankly, you’d have to be a real twitter to buy it. If plants could read this, they’d be laughing their hairy stamens off at us stupid humans right now.-Martin Lynch
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