Developing a product visualizing a plant's need for watering

Abstract: Urbanization in the world has during the past 60 years accelerated, resulting in people living in more densely populated areas and spending a majority of their lives indoors. Another ongoing trend in many countries is an increase in mental health issues, where urbanization could be a contributing factor. Studies have shown that closeness to nature increases our well-being. One way to achieve this indoors is by having indoor plants, or houseplants. However, a common issue with having houseplants in your home is that most of them need to be watered regularly to thrive. Living a stressful life, having no interest or lacking knowledge about houseplants easily makes you forget to water them, causing them to wilt or keeping you from having them in the first place. This master thesis has the purpose of developing a product that that eases the nursing of houseplants, to encourage people to have more plants in their homes. The design process started off by researching the cause of the problem, what solutions and aids that are available today and what target group that is in most need of the product. Based on this, the kind of solution that the thesis would focus on could be decided - Using light to increase the feedback received from a plant of its need for watering. Through the use of a persona and a design brief, a clear description of the task was then formed. The development process started off by testing and evaluating the technical components needed for the solution. By making simple prototypes, user studies could be made to gain insights on how the feedback could be communicated in the best way. This eventually resulted in a concept for a product that was made into a final, functioning prototype. The final concept is a type of lamp that through a moisture sensor visualizes a plant’s need for watering. By placing the sensor into the soil of a plant pot, the lamp uses a red and green color scale to communicate the plant’s access to water. The lamp is also programmed to turn on automatically when the soil becomes too dry, notifying the user when watering is due.