Since my last update, I have found a new hobby that took up vast majority of my free time.

This new hobby came about by accident when I started working on an IoT pet project using Lego. I wrote an article that documented what I have done.

From there, I expanded out to build another IoT system, which is a Smart Gardening system to water my plants. The Smart Gardening system turned out to be the largest pet project that I have ever endeavoured. I had to break the project into multiple phases and parts, which allow me to write a series of article documenting everything. They can be found here:

1. Phase 1 (Start of the project)
2. Phase 2 Part 1 (WiFi Exploration)
3. Phase 3 Part 1 (Water Pump Control Exploration)
4. Phase 3 Part 2 (Water Pump Control Implementation)

And the best part about the Smart Gardening system is that I’m not done with it yet.

Now, this is not without any underlying reason. I saw that there is a gap in terms of IoT skills and I wanted to fill that gap to make my contribution for my current employer. At the same time, I also wanted to demonstrate and prove to myself that my creativity is beyond just writing.

It also got me down another path of exploring building my own electronic circuit. It became a project on its own that I document it here. The end goal that I want out of the project was to expand on the Smart Gardening project.

The good thing that came out of all this is that I have a better understanding of IoT and electronics in general. Combine that with my writing and software engineering skills, I think I can contribute in many ways to make people’s life easier and better than before.

With that, I’m signing off here.