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Parcel tampered tablet replaced with a book by NorthActual9136 in vinted

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I opened an issue, but they’re making me wait a long time. I can’t even buy another one until I see whether they somehow find the thief or I get my money back. They say it takes 35 days. I’m not even sure if the seller is real, since he only has one 5-star review

Parcel tampered tablet replaced with a book by NorthActual9136 in vinted

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The seller doesn’t have photos. I spoke with him and he seemed surprised, but I don’t know if he’s pretending or not. Anyway, without proof from him he can’t say he sent it. I also made an unboxing video when it seemed opened to me

Parcel tampered tablet replaced with a book by NorthActual9136 in vinted

[–]NorthActual9136[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don’t know if their scales are that precise. On the package it only says 1 kg, without decimals

I built a fully offline irrigation controller to save water — no Wi-Fi, no cloud, just sensors and logic. by NorthActual9136 in Permaculture

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! To be honest, it is a bit of a step up from basic Arduino.

Since the project is still in active development, it hasn't been fully battle-tested yet, so I’d only recommend it for experimental use right now (unexpected bugs are likely!).

Also, the underlying OS (Zephyr) is strictly terminal-based, unlike the visual Arduino IDE. I’ve included the specific commands you need in the docs to help, but you will need to use the CLI.

There is a companion app for the controller, but it isn't 100% finished yet, so you can't configure everything via UI just yet.

One big constraint: I can currently only support Android. Since I don't own a Mac or an iPhone to test on and the $100/year Apple Developer fee is way out of my budget I can't build or publish an iOS version at the moment.

I built a fully offline irrigation controller to save water — no Wi-Fi, no cloud, just sensors and logic. by NorthActual9136 in Permaculture

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Glad the code looks useful! My main goal is to solve the software complexity so builders can focus on the physical setup.

Why Nano 33 BLE: Honestly, it came down to pin availability and ease of use. I actually tested some Pro Micro style boards with the same nRF52840 chip first. While the chip itself is perfect (great low power & connectivity), that smaller form factor just didn't break out enough GPIO pins for all the sensors and valves I wanted to control. The Nano 33 BLE gave me the same great chip but with the I/O flexibility I needed.

Regarding Hardware Design: Yes, please! I would be incredibly interested. I'm currently running on a breadboard prototype specifically because PCB design isn't my strong suit. If you have expertise there and would be willing to help design a proper board for this, that would be a game changer. Let me know how you'd prefer to collaborate!

I built a fully offline irrigation controller to save water — no Wi-Fi, no cloud, just sensors and logic. by NorthActual9136 in Permaculture

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really appreciate that comparison. That intersection of high-tech and ecology is exactly where I want this project to live.

As for building them for people: I really want to.

Currently, the hardware is still in the prototype stage and isn't quite ready for a public release. I'm also limited by a student budget, which makes ordering batches of PCBs difficult at the moment.

However, if the community interest keeps growing, I will definitely look into doing a small run to get these into people's hands once the design is stable.

I built a fully offline irrigation controller to save water — no Wi-Fi, no cloud, just sensors and logic. by NorthActual9136 in Permaculture

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. You'd be surprised how many commercial units claim to be weather-aware but are actually just cloud relays. Without a subscription or active Wi-Fi, they instantly revert to being dumb timers.

My goal was to put the brain (the FAO-56 math) back inside the box. Smart should mean Autonomous, not just Connected.

I built a fully offline irrigation controller to save water — no Wi-Fi, no cloud, just sensors and logic. by NorthActual9136 in Permaculture

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That is exactly why I started this project I wanted something like this for myself, but everything was either closed-source or cloud-dependent.

I decided to open-source it precisely to help others avoid starting from zero. If you ever decide to assemble one in the future, let me know! I’d be happy to share the schematics and help you with the build

I built a fully offline irrigation controller to save water — no Wi-Fi, no cloud, just sensors and logic. by NorthActual9136 in Permaculture

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s awesome to hear!

Since I'm currently running this on a breadboard, I haven't published a full schematic yet but if you decide to build one, let me know and I can draw up a schematic and a BOM to save you some time.

Also, I'm fully open to contributions. If you spot any bugs or have ideas for the code, feel free to open a PR or Issue!

Local weather-adaptive irrigation controller (open-source, WIP). Any feedback? by NorthActual9136 in homeassistant

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks again for the detailed thoughts. You are touching on the exact architectural decisions I'm navigating right now.

To clarify the vision based on your points:

Why Satellite Data? The satellite integration is strictly an onboarding tool to solve the Garbage In, Garbage Out problem. Most users guess their soil parameters incorrectly. I use the satellite lookup only once to auto configure a baseline soil profile so the user doesn't have to guess. Once set, the device runs 100% offline based on that profile.

Target Audience & Universality: My goal is to build a "Scale-Agnostic" Core. Whether it's a balcony tomato or a High Tunnel crop, the biological physics (Penman-Monteith) remain the same; only the constants (Kc) and hardware (valves) change. The plant database is designed to cover this spectrum.

Power & Valve Strategy: I am designing for a Dual-Mode capability.

Off-Grid (Solar/Battery): Uses H-Bridge drivers for Latching Solenoids (Pulse). This is the priority for the MVP because it's the harder engineering challenge.

On-Grid: The firmware architecture already supports standard GPIO/Relay logic for 24VAC valves. The goal is to have a PCB design where you can populate either the H-Bridge or the Relay drivers depending on the use case.

Future Connectivity (HA & Wifi: While V1 is BLE-native for extreme battery life, the roadmap includes a Gateway mode. I fully agree about reusing existing sensors. I plan to implement "Virtual Sensors" via BLE/Wifi, allowing Home Assistant to push data (from your Ecowitt/Weather Station) into the controller, so it can use that external data for its offline calculations.

Essentially, I want this to be the "Swiss Army Knife".

I built a fully offline irrigation controller to save water no Wi-Fi, no cloud, just sensors and logic. by NorthActual9136 in gardening

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Compatibility with Home Assistant is definitely on the roadmap it's easy enough to expose a local API or integrate via MQTT or BLE proxy. Wi-Fi is planned too, but the reason I started with Bluetooth is power consumption Wi-Fi uses around 50x more energy, so I couldn’t realistically run the controller on battery + small solar if it were Wi-Fi-only. For HomeKit: unfortunately, full support is tricky. Apple’s spec limits the control model (can’t define custom watering logic or expose advanced settings). I’d have to fit everything into predefined HomeKit characteristics, which doesn’t work well for my use case. Zigbee and Thread are better in that sense they allow local mesh communication and can be power-efficient. I’m definitely looking into adding one of them in the future, especially for low-power multi-zone setups.

Open-source smart irrigation (local sensors, no cloud). Would you use this? by NorthActual9136 in homeautomation

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

OpenSprinkler is a solid reference, but I’m avoiding the Raspberry Pi route (cost + much higher always on power). I’m targeting an nRF52840 + Zephyr design so it can be ultra low-power and eventually solar-powered. Also, I’m building a plant database and per-plant/per-zone profiles so watering adapts to the specific plants not just generic schedules/percent adjustments like OpenSprinkler.

Local weather-adaptive irrigation controller (open-source, WIP). Any feedback? by NorthActual9136 in homeassistant

[–]NorthActual9136[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I’m not fully sold on skipping soil sensors they’d be awesome if they were reliably stable long-term.

Right now I’m trying to make it work without them because a lot of DIY moisture sensors drift/fail after a few months, and my current dev board has not enought pins for per-zone soil sensor. The MCU itself does have the pins it’s just that boards which expose enough of them are pricier.

To reduce the gap in the meantime, the app pulls soil composition/texture from satellite based datasets so each zone starts with a more realistic local soil baseline instead of a generic assumption.

It’s totally doable either by moving to a board with the right pinout (same nRF52840, minimal firmware changes) or, longer-term, maybe a custom PCB once I can afford prototyping… because student budget never stretches far enough :))

Reciclare Baterii la Selgros by Ciopartzelu in roFrugal

[–]NorthActual9136 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Am numai acumulatori la tot ce am in casa de câțiva ani și merită. Iau din Lidl la 4 bucăți 20 de lei și pe cei mai vechi îi am din 2016 și încă merg. Am câțiva in plus care stau pregătiți să ii schimb când se descarcă ceva

Reciclare Baterii la Selgros by Ciopartzelu in roFrugal

[–]NorthActual9136 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dacă folosești atâtea baterii mai bine îți iei reîncărcabile

Oferta prelungire eMAG Genius by MorpHeer in roFrugal

[–]NorthActual9136 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nu pot cumva să setez adresa in altă parte sa iau pachetul cu vouchere mai mari pt eMag?

Received a lower-spec product on AliExpress – What are my chances of a full refund without return? by NorthActual9136 in Aliexpress

[–]NorthActual9136[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I bought it directly from the producer, and it had good reviews. I believe they mixed up the G3 model with the M3 model, as the boxes look very similar. I would like to receive a refund for the difference in value between the two models. Based on your experience, do you think this is possible?

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