Small-scale farmers in India lose significant crop yield to both over-watering and under-watering — not from negligence, but from having no reliable way to know what the soil actually needs. Existing smart irrigation systems are either too expensive, too complex, or require stable internet connectivity that rural fields don't have. The brief was to build a robust, affordable soil monitoring and motor control system that works offline and is intuitive enough for a non-technical farmer to operate.
We designed HarriyaliKart as a self-contained hardware unit with capacitive soil moisture sensors, a temperature probe, and a relay-controlled pump trigger — all running on an ESP32 with local decision logic so it functions without internet. A companion dashboard on a local WiFi network lets farmers visualise soil data in real time and set moisture thresholds. The enclosure was designed for IP65 weatherproofing and can be mounted directly on irrigation pipes.
HarriyaliKart successfully monitored soil conditions and automated irrigation scheduling in field trials. The system reduced manual intervention by over 80% during the trial period and demonstrated measurable water conservation compared to traditional timer-based irrigation. The local-first architecture meant zero dependence on cloud connectivity.
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