This monitoring system was developed based on the temperature, relative humidity, and soil moisture content of a plant to minimize the occurrence of excessive and irregular irrigation that leads to certain problems like shortage in soil nutritive elements and decrease in productivity. The system is composed of two nodes: the sensor node and the base node, and BLYNK mobile application program. The sensor node consists of sensors and a transmitter for the sending of data to the base node. The base node is responsible for accepting data from the sensor node and it consists of a receiver and a Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) module to relay the received data to the BLYNK cloud. The system used RF communication for sensor to base node data transmission and Global Packet Radio Service (GPRS) for base node to BLYNK cloud data transmission. The BLYNK application program is used to monitor and display the data from the sensors, and sends email notification when the measured value of at least one of the sensors is below or above the set limit. All functionalities of the application program were working. The maximum operating distance for the RF module was 35 m when both receiver and transmitter modules had an antenna installed. In addition, it was observed that GPRS communication was not stable, a noticeable time delay was experienced in displaying sensor data to the application. Hence, the use of more stable communication like Wi-Fi is highly recommended to avoid some communication issues.
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