Every solution on this shelf starts from a question a grower would actually say out loud: is the cooler holding, what is the greenhouse doing at 2am. Pick your question and the page answers it with a config, a handful of building blocks and a small board running free software, that you assemble, flash, and own. You do not design the system; you start from one that works and adjust it to fit.
One thing worth saying plainly, because this shelf is where most people start: everything here watches and reports. Monitoring cannot flood a room or burn out a pump. It only tells you what is happening, which is exactly why it is the right first step, and why control is a different conversation for another day.
The needs, met so far.
One need can have several solutions, and that is by design: the right one depends on your Wi-Fi, your comfort with a soldering iron, and how many zones you are watching. Same question, different paths; pick the one that fits.
Is my walk-in staying cold, and can I prove it?
What is my greenhouse doing when I am not in it?
The wired and cellular builds live in the Hardware Build Configs library; search the build's name there. More needs land as the collective adds gateways and purposes. If you have met one with a config that works, tell us; a solution that works for one grower usually works for several.
How each solution reads.
Every page on this shelf follows the same shape, top to bottom, so you can compare them at a glance:
- The need. What you want to know, in one sentence.
- The solution. What you will have when you are done, and which layer delivers each piece: the record this build gathers, the dashboard and alerts your endpoint adds.
- The config. The building blocks, arranged: a sensor, a small board, an endpoint. Every part links to its full entry in the Hardware catalog.
- The sketch and the build. The free software that runs the board, flashed from your browser, from the Software Library.
- Where the reading goes. The endpoint choice, covered in full on Connectivity.
- Variations. How the same config stretches to more coolers, more zones, or a moving truck.
One gateway, many configs.
A single gateway usually anchors more than one config. The BLE Sensor Listener, one board, one sketch, reads a Bluetooth thermometer and pushes the reading onward. Point it at a walk-in cooler and it is a cold-chain monitor. Put it in a greenhouse next to a humidity sensor and it is a greenhouse monitor. The gateway did not change. The purpose did, because you pointed the same block at a different problem and picked the sensor that problem needed.
Frequently asked questions.
What is a sensor config for a farm or greenhouse?
A set of building blocks, a sensor, a small board or gateway, and an endpoint, already put together for one purpose, such as watching a cooler or a greenhouse zone. Instead of designing the system from scratch, a grower starts from a config that already works for the same problem and adjusts the parts to fit.
Do I have to buy a complete kit to monitor a greenhouse or cooler?
No. A monitoring setup can be assembled from separately purchased parts: a consumer Bluetooth sensor, an inexpensive ESP32 board flashed with free open-source firmware, and an endpoint you choose to receive the readings. Openly published reference designs show which parts work together, so nothing has to be bought as a sealed bundle, and each piece can be replaced or upgraded on its own later.
Can one gateway support more than one config?
Yes. The same gateway and sketch often anchor several configs; only the sensor and the purpose change. The BLE Sensor Listener, for example, is the gateway behind both the Cold-Chain Monitor and the Greenhouse Monitor configs here.