uPlant gave us the opportunity to master technologies that we have not used before. This new technology was a Telegram chat bot running on ESP32.

We chose Telegram messenger because we wanted to communicate with plants not in a separate app, but as a chat in the same place as with relatives / friends / colleagues - we use Telegram a lot, for most of our messaging needs and also to read channels and news. The example bot is often used to retrieve data or control electronics. Our goal was communication with plants.

Writing a bot is no less difficult than writing firmware (technically speaking it is a frimware as well since it runs on a MCU), so the process is not fast. At the moment, we have made it possible to connect several uPlants and can receive data on their condition (soil moisture, air temperature).

Next, we plan to be able to choose the "character" of the plant and based on this, the plant will be able to communicate with you the way you imagine it.

For now, plants already can respond to questions with several dozens of synthesized phrases - and of course stickers!