I had recently embarked on a small project inspired by ex-colleagues. One of the largest obstacles for a hobbyist is the cost of starting an IOT project.

The project was reignited after encouraging from a friend. I am amazed after learning from him that I can get an arduino with wifi and BLE; ESP32-wrover-ie . The primary appeal is the module cost MYR32 (at the time of the blog post). Its price will be able to allow hobbyist like me to create IoT that will act as a DAQ (Data AQuisition) device, that I can use the data to try out weather forecast modelling using BiLTSM; that will be another story hopefully in near future.

The customed model kit bundle are as following:

Missing the picture of Moisture Sensor Module x 2

LoRa and GPS module are used to detect and map how far can the LoRa communicate from a LoRa base station (stationary as control location) in the Penang urban environment.

Original intention is to create an IoT that is capable to acquire temperature, moisture, atmosphere pressure, the additional sensors and communication devices are stretch goal to monitor soil moisture and to detect rain.

I am looking forward to creating using ESP32-wrover-ie to perform data aquisition that will allow to collection of data to predict chance of rain fall.

I am pretty happy that the total amount of money spent is about MYR 250.