Iot on grainworks

Blumat Automatic Watering — Research

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:00:00 -0400

Status: Research compiled.

A technical deep-dive into Blumat automatic watering systems — the pressure-regulated drip irrigation systems that use ceramic soil moisture sensors instead of electronic timers. No power, no pumps, no controllers — just physics.

Key Areas

System architecture: How the ceramic cone sensors regulate water flow based on soil tension
Setup considerations: Pressure regulation, line runs, emitter placement, system bleeding
Integration potential: Adding IoT monitoring (moisture sensors, flow meters) to the purely mechanical system
Scale considerations: Small garden vs greenhouse vs market garden configurations

Source Files

Research doc: /Volumes/Mini_1Tb/Projects/research/blumat-watering-systems.md

Grainworks LoRa Mesh

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:00:00 -0400

Status: v1 reference designs complete. Schematics generated via KiCad Python S-expression builders.

A two-component LoRa mesh network for rural property coverage. The Grain Seed Connection — the link between a personal mobile node and a stationary home base — provides off-grid messaging, position tracking, and WiFi bridging across properties where cellular coverage is unreliable.

Components

Grain Tag (Personal)

Mobile pocket device running Meshtastic for off-grid messaging and position tracking.

v1 spec: Heltec Wireless Tracker V1.1 (ESP32-S3 + SX1262 + GPS)

Tiny Hermes Robot

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:00:00 -0400

Status: Design spec complete. Prototype pending.

The Tiny Hermes Robot is a deliberately simple robotic platform. All reasoning, vision processing, navigation, and personality live on the Hermes backend. The robot itself is just sensors, motors, and a display — an I/O shell with zero onboard intelligence.

Architecture

 ┌─────────────────────┐
 │ HERMES BACKEND │
 │ (Hermes Agent VM) │
 │ │
 │ • Vision (YOLO/CLIP)│
 │ • Path planning │
 │ • Speech (STT/TTS) │
 │ • Decision-making │
 │ • Personality/LLM │
 └──────┬──────────────┘
 │ WiFi / Tailscale
 │ WebSocket / MJPEG
 ┌──────┴──────────────┐
 │ ROBOT CLIENT │ ← "Dumb" — no local AI
 │ (ESP32-S3) │
 │ │
 │ • Camera stream │
 │ • Motor drive I²C │
 │ • OLED display │
 │ • I²S mic + amp │
 │ • Battery monitor │
 └─────────────────────┘

Hardware BOM

Component	Part	Cost
MCU	ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 (16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM)	~$15
Camera	OV2640 (2MP) on FPC ribbon	~$8
Display	0.96″ OLED 128×64, SSD1306 I²C	~$4
Motors	N20 micro metal gearmotor (100:1, ~150 RPM) ×2	~$12
Driver	DRV8833 dual H-bridge (I²C via PCA9685)	~$5
Chassis	3D-printed PLA (2 pieces)	~$3
Battery	18650 Li-ion (3.7V 2600mAh) + TP4056 charger	~$8
Audio	INMP441 I²S mic + MAX98357A amp + speaker	~$8
LoRa (opt)	SX1262 + SMA antenna	~$15
Total		~$97 ($82 without LoRa)

Communication

Primary (WiFi): Robot streams MJPEG frames + JSON telemetry (battery, temp, RSSI, encoder position) over WebSocket. Hermes sends motor commands, display updates, and speech TTS back down the same connection.