At the core of this project is an Arduino R3 microcontroller hooked up to an ethernet shield. There are other form factors that might’ve been more compact for this use, but I tried to keep this as simple as possible for the initial concept. For prototyping, I am using an Adafruit breadboard and mounting plate. For the final assembly, I am considering using a clear project case mounted to a wood planter box. For stability, I will also replace the breadboard with one of Adafruit’s wonderful perma-proto boards.
On the breadboard you can see the light sensor: a Modern Device AMBI light sensor. This will read the ambient light on the plant and output the data as Lux, a unit equal to one lumen per square meter. This chart gives a basic idea of how much lux equates to how much real world light.