PottedBaby AI smart planter

PottedBaby is a compact device that sits in a flower pot, reads soil temperature and moisture, and gives the plant a face and a voice. It shows expressions on a small OLED screen, reacts when someone walks by, and holds spoken AI conversations. It was built as a smart-planter prototype for STEM education, maker projects and interactive desktop products.

A small potted pine tree in a grey ceramic pot on a white office table, with a square device clipped into the pot rim — PottedBaby in a real pot on an office table

Close-up of the square device in the pot showing a small screen, a round motion sensor and a cartoon plant label — Screen, motion sensor and front panel

Red PCB layout with dimension lines, showing footprints labelled OLED, PIR, MIC, MSE and IMP — Design file: 60 x 60 mm PCB layout

Tech stack

Main controller: ESP32-C3 SuperMini
Sensors: Soil temperature and moisture sensor (Modbus), PIR motion sensor
Display: OLED expression display
Audio: Microphone and speaker with MAX98357A amplifier
Power: Rechargeable battery with charge module and power switch
Software: MicroPython firmware with on-device async scheduling; ASR / LLM / TTS voice dialogue

What we built

Product definition
Hardware and PCB design
3D enclosure and front-panel design
Embedded firmware: sensor handling, Modbus parsing, AI dialogue workflow
ASR / LLM / TTS integration
Prototype build and validation
Small-batch production preparation

Development time

about 15 days

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