your plants can talk (via twitter)

Now we’ve all heard the myth that talking to your plants help them to thrive, but this is the first time I’ve heard of a way to find out what they’re saying back to us. This gadget lets you keep tabs on your house plants via the Internet, letting them reach out to the world using the popular micro-blogging website Twitter.

Adafruit’s Botanicalls Twitter Kit lets your plants communicate over the web, letting you know when they need water, or if they’re feeling happy that they’ve been recently cared for. And since Twitter can notify your mobile device of new posts, you can receive a text message when your plant is feeling blue.

The easy-to-assemble electronic kit uses wired moisture sensors to detect your plant’s state of mind and send information out to the Internet via an on-board Ethernet jack. Connect the board to your PC using a USB cable, and the Arduino-based circuit can be programmed to send custom messages to Twitter.

The kit is available from Adafruit for $160 USD. All I need now is for my dogs and cat to start Twittering too and I can finally take a nice long vacation.

[via MAKE]

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categories: gadgets just plain fun

tags: arduinocircuitelectronickitplanttwitterwater

May 9th, 2008 comments: stumble it! digg it! by: technabob

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