Getting Started

ESPHome

The GrowSmart system is based on ESPHome. The ESPHome project was created to be able to use cheap microcontrollers for home automation purposes, like reading sensors and controlling actuators.

In order to get started, you first have to install ESPHome and make sure that you are able to write firmware to GrowSmart Core via USB, which should be done before assembling it and bolting everything down.

This may be the most difficult part for some people, but providing support to get ESPHome running is out of scope for this documentation - please see the ESPHome site for more help.

GrowSmart

GrowSmart itself is not a software in the traditional sense, but rather carefully crafted configuration files that create ESPHome firmware images tailored specifically for the GrowSmart system.

As these configuration files are written in YAML, they can be modified and adjusted by anyone without rquiring any software development skills - as long as they pay attention to whitespaces. ;-)

The reference implementation of GrowSmart can be found here: https://git.faked.org/jan/growsmart-esphome/

Download the project using your preferred method (git clone or regular download) and continue with the Configuration.