What hardware to buy for a simple plant monitoring project?

Projects General Guidance
1

Greetings!

I have been playing around with the Raspberry PI for a little while now, and I am now interested in getting started with the Arduino. I have decided that to begin with a simple plant monitoring project, and ultimately have the data uploaded to some form of a web server. I've seen many tutorials doing similar things, but I'm not sure what components I should buy to get started. I know there are lots of different sensors out there to choose from, and I'm not so worried about that part. I'm more concerned about what Arduino board I should use.

Ultimately, I'm going to want to put this device just outside of my window (within WiFi range), and I want to power it by a simple battery pack. I don't really think that I want to use the full Arduino board, as that seems excessive, and lacks WiFi without having to also get a shield.

I was thinking about maybe going with the Adafruit HUZZAH ESP8266 Breakout. This has the WiFi component, but I'm not sure if I need to use this WITH another component, or if I can just use this on its own.

Alternatively, if the WiFi part is going to be too complicated, maybe I could just do something with LEDs and the Adafruit Pro Trinket.

What do you guys recommend for building a simple, 3 sensor monitoring station?

2

The main disadvantage of an ESP8266 is it has fewer pins both digital (9 pins) and analog, which is only one pin.

So the answer lies on which and how many of the "different sensors out there" you plan to use

3

blimpyway:
The main disadvantage of an ESP8266 is it has fewer pins both digital -9 pins - and analog, that is only one pin.

So the answer lies on which and how many of the "different sensors out there" you plan to use

Thank you for your reply. I'm planning to use the following sensors, however, I can change this as I haven't bought anything yet:

  • Temp/Humidity Sensor - DHT11 (1 digital pin)
  • Light Sensor - Photocell (1 analog pin)
  • Soil Moisture Sensor - SparkFun Soil Moisture Sensor (1 analog pin)
4

the ESP8266 should be able to do what you want. you can turn off the wifi and drop the power use considerably.