Oh, for sure it is better to integrate into opensprinkler. There is not much point in having an internet enabled irrigation system that requires you to stand in front og the thing with a screwdriver in your hand.
I only said that to illustrate that this thing seems to require hardware, software and integration. I have no intention whatsoever of offering a manual solution.
The difficulty is that like any sensor system there are two main parts, detecting a condition and then acting upon it. My belief is that we will end up connecting this to the I2C bust and doing the rest in software. Each sensor (either wired or wireless) needs to end up being connected something that can output a 0-255 variable. If this is passed via the I2C bus to a plugin that can start or stop any given channel (from watering) based upon a plugin set threshold from on the 0-255 variable.
The hardware is fairly simple using an Arduino chip since this has 6 analog inputs and 13 digital ones. Using the 6 analog and two of the digital ones would seem to be a reasonable compromise. Obviously one could use two Arduinos and provide 12 analog inputs but, that would put the cost up.
I am not sure how other sensors output their data so for now I will simply stick to a 0-3V input.
Does that sound a bit more sensible? I hope so…