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🌊 Slight dispatch delays possible as we catch up with sale orders, please bear with us 🐨

Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard)

by Pimoroni

A wireless monitoring system to help take good care of your plants. Monitor moisture levels with the soil sensors, or hook up pumps to make a whole auto-watering system!

Enviro Grow comes with three capacitive moisture sensors to monitor up to three pots or trays of seeds separately. Because there are no exposed electrodes, capacitive sensors are a lot less vulnerable to corrosion over time than old school resistive sensors. There's also a buzzer so it can signal your attention. The onboard sensors can measure temperature, humidity, pressure and light so you can finetune the growing conditions for your plants (you could also use the light sensor it to stop the buzzer from going off at night).

On the back of Enviro Grow there are another three connectors that will let you turn low-current 3.3V devices like pumps, motors, valves, solenoids or lights on and off. There's also a Qw/ST connector for if you want to grow your smart watering system and add more I2C sensors.

Enviro x Pico W Aboard

Our new Enviro (Pico W Aboard) range is designed with environmental monitoring / logging in mind. We wanted to make a range of Pico/RP2040-powered, all-in-one sensor boards that are compact, easy to install in places and straightforward to program. The wireless capability of Raspberry Pi Pico W lets Enviro integrate with other systems - so you could post your data into databases, home automation systems, or online citizen science efforts - the Internet's your lobster!

Because the least fun thing about adding lots of sensors to your environment is figuring out how supply power to everything without tons of trailing wires, they are all designed to work well off battery power.  Each Enviro board has an onboard RTC (Real Time Clock), so that they can periodically wake up from deep sleep, take a reading (and, optionally, connect to wifi) and then go back to sleep - giving you months of untethered battery life.

We've also put together some handy accessory kits to go with our Enviro boards, that include an appropriately sized AA or AAA battery pack, a USB cable and other essentials for each board, so you can get going super quick.

Enviro Features

  • Raspberry Pi Pico W Aboard
    • Dual Arm Cortex M0+ running at up to 133Mhz with 264kB of SRAM
    • 2MB of QSPI flash supporting XiP
    • Powered and programmable by USB micro-B
    • 2.4GHz wireless
  • Deep sleep/wake function using RTC
  • 1 x POKE (user) button
  • Reset button (because we're not monsters)
  • Battery connector (JST-PH connector, 5.5V max voltage)
  • User/activity LED (dimmable via PWM, can only be lit when board is awake)
  • Warn LED (attached to RTC)
  • Qw/ST connector for attaching breakouts
  • Fully assembled
  • No soldering required.
  • Enviro firmware
  • Schematic

Enviro Grow Features

  • 3 x JST SH 3P connectors for capacitive moisture sensors
  • 3 x Picoblade 2P-compatible connectors with MOSFETs for turning low current 3.3V devices on and off.
  • Piezo buzzer
  • BME280 temperature, pressure, humidity sensor (datasheet)
  • LTR-559 light and proximity sensor (datasheet)

Grow + Sensors Includes

  • Enviro Grow
  • 3 x Moisture Sensor
  • 3 x Moisture Sensor Cable (35cm)

Grow + Accessory Kit Includes

  • Enviro Grow
  • 3 x Moisture Sensor
  • 3 x Moisture Sensor Cable (35cm)
  • 3 x Mini Submersible Pumps
  • 1m of Silicone Tube
  • 3 x AA battery pack
  • 3 x AA batteries
  • USB micro-B cable
  • Velcro for attaching the battery pack

Software

Enviro ships with some super slick provisioning software that makes it really easy to set it up and connect to things, even if it's your first foray into environmental logging/IoT. Power it up and connect to the network called 'Enviro Grow Setup' with your phone, tablet or other wi-fi enabled device - your Pico W will walk you through the rest!

Connecting Breakouts

The Qw/ST connectors on Enviro boards make it super easy to connect up I2C Qwiic or STEMMA QT breakouts. If your breakout has a QW/ST connector on board, you can plug it straight in with a JST-SH to JST-SH cable. 

Breakout Garden breakouts that don't have a Qw/ST connector can be connected using a JST-SH to JST-SH cable plus a Qw/ST to Breakout Garden adaptor. Want to use multiple breakouts at the same time? Try this adaptor!

Notes

  • Measurements: 69 x 36 x 10 mm (L x W x H, approx)
  • Enviro boards can enter a deep sleep mode where the Pico W, on board sensors and sensors connected via Qw/ST are completely powered down. The only thing left running on the board is the RTC which can wake up the board again at a set date and time or on a timer. You can also wake up the board via the POKE button, or by connecting the USB cable. If connected to USB power Enviro will never enter deep sleep, though our software will reset the board every time it takes a reading.  Power consumption when asleep is 20uA.
  • The RTC can also be used to keep track of the time and date (which means we don't need to waste power by making a wireless call to find out the time/date each time we log a sensor reading!)
  • The Warn LED is connected to the RTC, so it can be lit even during deep sleep to notify you of problems. It is limited to three states - on, off, or 1hz blink (it's not possible to control the brightness).
  • If you're using pumps with your Enviro Grow, we'd recommend using a 3 x AA battery pack. If you're just using the moisture sensors, Enviro Grow can be powered by a 2 x AAA battery pack which fits neatly behind the board or any battery pack that can supply between 2V and 5.5V - 2 or 3 alkaline AA or AAA cells, 4 rechargeable NiMH cells or a single cell LiPo. If you're using a LiPo, bear in mind there's no battery charging included on Enviro boards, so you'll need a separate LiPo battery charger (like a LiPo Amigo) to be able to charge it. 

About Pico W Aboard

Our new Pico W Aboard products come with a built in Raspberry Pi Pico W. This means you get all the advantages of a RP2040 microcontroller - a speedy fast dual-core ARM processor, a dynamic, growing ecosystem and a choice of different programming methods to experiment with. Most excitingly though, Pico W has wireless connectivity, so your Pico/RP2040 devices can communicate with each other, and the internet! 🌍

Wireless is very new to Pico/RP2040 - be aware that things will move fast and change! Software support (wireless examples, tutorials, CircuitPython support etc) will take a little while to catch up. If you're an absolute beginner to Pico/RP2040, you might have a better experience with wireless if you wait until everything is a little more settled.

19 customer reviews

a day ago
One must be familiar with micropython, especially in the initial stages of device configuration. Once configured, it works perfectly. The battery voltage display must be enabled. Data transmission works perfectly. Highly recommended!
by valerio about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
7 months ago
A good, but somewhat unfinished product. Overall, it's a solid product that is easy to get up and running. The provisioning script helps get the initial configuration all set up. With not much work, I was able to receive readings on my home assistant instance via mqtt. However, I'm not doing a science project or proof of concept. I wanting to build a full fledged auto-watering system and this is where it falls short. First miss- It would have been nice to have one of more of the currently unused gpio pins available for a water tank level input. I bare soldered the connections to gpio 16 and a ground pin and that works. but looks a bit cludgy and is a potential weak point for failure. Also seemed wastefull to use the qw/st connector to go to another board just to get a binary input. I suppose I could have reprogrammed the qw/st connector to be just a gpio rather than i2c, but I think it better to leave it as intended. Second miss. Maybe it's there, but I couldn't find any documention or examples to show how to communicate TO the grow device. With a lot of work, I figured it out and will post my solution at some point. I do have a feeling, without any guidance, my implementation follows worst practices vs best practices. But I needed to do something; in a production system, it's not practical to have to pull the board down, run over to a pc, launch thorny, just to change some run time configurations such as how often to take a reading. Clear documentation and examples should be provided for 2 way communication. All that said, this is so far better than having to start with a bare pico and build the hardware support on my own. This got me 80% of the way there, but that last 20% was a climb. Overall, I would recommend as a great experimental board, and a good prodution board for those willing to put in the work to extend the capabilities for that purpose.
by Anonymous about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
9 months ago
Better than I expected, quite easy to set up. According to documentation should last for months even on a few AA batteries, if configured to run and upload measurements at not too frequent intervals. Also, no soldering needed, so this is pretty much a plug-n-play kit. The only downside is that this is limited to 3 sensors and 3 pumps. I assume this is dictated by Pico's 3 inputs ADC limitation, but theoretically could be resolved in some future more advanced version of this PCB with an additional ADC chip. That's my only gripe, please provide an 8 or 10 sensors/pumps version!
by Anonymous about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
a year ago
The device is very handy and does its job as expected. The free enviro.io plan is a bit limited, but there are easy guides yo setup your mqtt or fluxdb store. It would be nice to be able to reconfigure the parameters (frequency, thresholds, enable/disable watering) without having to plug the device in a computer, but memory is limited so probably not feasible
by Nicola about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
a year ago
It's a great tiny little device, which fits everywhere and provides great data, plus with 3 pumps incredible finctionslity. Just make sure to get wires and pipes of the right length for your environment
by Nicola about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
a year ago
The documentation could be improved. In particular, it would be helpful if the specific version of software used was provided. Over time, the versions of Influxdb and Grafana change and the UI doesn't match the Enviro Grow write-up (terms used (for instance database vs bucket) and screenshots differ). A pointer to Raspberry Pi Pico would be useful for people who are unfamiliar with interacting with the Pico (it's quite different from other models of Raspberry Pi.
by David about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
a year ago
Well, after a few restarts and attempts to have it up and running, it now seems to be bricked :-( I have tested with a lots of different cables, power sources but it still boot up.
by Michael about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
a year ago
A total waste of time, and at the moment a total waste of my money.....the documentation to support this product has to be the worst I have ever come across in over 40 years of dealing with technology. I have already raised a support request via email and waiting for a response
by John about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Expect a few hours of work to understand how it works and the quirks. But then works quite well. I plan to order another one when there will be available again. The icing on the cake was discovering how little code is necessary to make everything work
by Paul about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
The pimoroni team helpful respond in a few days of contact. But I've just started chemo so haven't been able to get back to my enviro grow watering setup so can't really give a good review. but I can say the quality of the products are superb but for an amateur setup it will take time and patience. The pimoroni team will help as much as possible so just be patient. I will give a review when I'm able to get my setup up and running. The tech is amazing when working and the fact it can have multiple setup and sensors it's amazing product.
by Paul about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Great looking kit BUT can't get anything other than temperature and wifi to work. doesn't seams to be anyone who actually has a full working system. Looks great quality but a long way from actually fully working. will try again in a month maybe someone will get it working and I'll have a use for it but destination drawer. Did hope to buy more products but fear the same issues sadly
by Paul about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
What I really like about the Enviro Grow + Accessory Kit is that it comes fully soldered and ready to use. Furthermore I like the principle of commissioning via its own web server; means to configure the Enviro I only need to activate the commissioning mode and connect my smart phone to the Enviro board which runs a built-in Webserver. On its provided website I can enter all required config settings and save. (Without being required to connect via USB-cable and editing the config file manually) After this initiation I can restart and use this device. The Enviro grow leverages the Wifi functionality of the Raspberry Pi Pico W and comes with 3 different reporting options, amongst them Adafuit.io and direct MQTT. So the Enviro will connect to your Home WIFI network to upload the sensor readings in the specified format. I have setup an Adafruit.iO dashboard where I can see all sensor readings as graphs or listings. But it is flexible enough that I can modify the code to fulfill my personal requirements. So in my case I only made use of two moisture sensors and two pumps, so the remaining connector can be used for an additional sensor. (In the future I will enhance my Enviro by adding a water level sensor) And I can also modify the output options (so e.g. I added the information about pump time to be included in the data transfer to adafruit.io) To enlarge battery time the board falls into deep sleep mode and wakes only in a given time Intervall to read the sensor data and upload the values. By this the battery lasts weeks (two months). Only when an error occurs (e.g. WIFI not available or out of range) then the flashing red LED will consume more power. All in all the best experience ever. More than I expected! Excellent job, dear Pimoroni team!
by Stephan about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
I kill plants, so hopefully this is going to help. The software although not complete is great, the provisioning mode helps you name, connect to Wifi and setup uploading readings quickly. The python libraries are well organised and logical, making it easy to customise. I can’t wait to see how this evolves. This range of products helps make the IOT dream a reality. Keep up the great work guys.
by Spencer about Enviro Grow (Pico W Aboard) via REVIEWS.io

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