GrowSense update

[John JR]

Hey everyone,

Sorry it's been so long since I posted an update. The last year or so has been crazy, and I'm just starting to bounce back from it.

I definitely haven't given up on GrowSense, in fact I've made quite a lot of progress.

I helped launch a manufacturing and ecommerce business with the plan to use it to manufacture and launch GrowSense products, but ended up having irreconcilable differences (I won't go into details because they're not worth dwelling on) with my former business partner so I left to work solo on GrowSense again.

After moving my entire lab into the new workshop I then had to move it all back again, and I'm still setting it up again (mostly done).

There is some good news though...

I now have a fair bit of 3D printing experience and have 4 3D printers, so I've been designing and printing GrowSense cases and fully automated smart pots.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to post more info about these at some point.

A hydroponics wholesaler/retailer (they have a retail store but also sell wholesale to other stores) is keen to sell these smart pots and prepared to invest in mass production. I'm in the process of completing working 3d printed prototypes (almost there) to deliver to them to test out.

I'd like to open source the designs if I can get the wholesaler to agree with it. Otherwise the hardware may remain closed source.

Even if the smart pot hardware remains closed source the GrowSense software which runs on it will always remain open source (just like a samsung phone hardware is proprietary but it runs android which is open source).

If for some reason things don't work out with this retailer I'll just sell them myself, in which case I will most likely open source the designs. Although I'll make that decision based on what I feel is the best business decision rather than just being an open source purist. (It's time to think about how to make money out of all the work I've done, to fund further progress).

After setting up an ecommerce store selling arduinos and related components, then leaving the business I helped set up, I went ahead and set up a new ecommerce business doing the same thing for myself. This has established a supply chain I can now use for GrowSense, giving me access to parts at wholesale prices.

I already have a decent inventory of parts I can use for GrowSense.

The experience with ecommerce will also help when it comes to selling GrowSense systems. So it's a step in the right direction, despite initially taking some time away from GrowSense.

Moving my lab out, then back again, gave me a chance to set it up better than it was before. Giving me more storage and bench space. It took longer than just setting it up how it was, but it'll be worth it in the long run.

I'm taking this opportunity to reorganize and upgrade the GrowSense infrastructure (eg. moving from Jenkins to GitLab which is easier to scale up as things grow, and moving all the hardware onto a shelving unit with more space for growth, and easier to access than the stackable drawers it previously was set up in).

It would have been faster to just set it up how it was, but again it'll be worth it in the long run despite taking longer initially.

These upgrades aren't complete yet and the infrastructure is currently offline while I finish setting up my lab again.

It seemed better to do this now than having downtime after retail sales of GrowSense systems begin.

I'm now closer than I ever was to being able to manufacture and sell GrowSense systems. But I still have a lot to do before I can begin that.

Cheers,

John

[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]

Hi John,

Happy to see you back.

At this moment some of us are pretty busy with a new paid project, the Leaves Blender. It is a paid project, not a lot of money to start, but there is potential to attract more. See if there's something in it for you... Not exactly the same thing as growing plants, but processing plants. It might be complementary to GrowSense though and there might be a way to build synergy between them. Since this is a funded project and the community is growing, there might be other adjacent potential.

Most exchanges happen on Discord (find link on the forum page).

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[Tim L]

It's good to hear from you, John and especially good to hear that GrowSense is advancing well - even if it's often, "two steps forward, one step back" - as they say.  In any case, glad to hear of the productive experiences and learnings of the past year and that, despite many challenges stemming from the pandemic or otherwise, good progress has been achieved, your hard work is producing results and, the bounce-back is well underway.

Thanks for the update and please continue to keep us apprised of developments there!

Tim

P.S. I was thinking about Tiberius' earlier reply - indeed - Precious Plastic -> GrowSense ->Green Wall ->Leaf Blender - it's starting to look more and more like an integrated (circular) value/supply chain! : )

On Mon, Apr 19, 2021 at 7:21 PM John JR <compuls...@gmail.com> wrote:

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