From what I can tell most digital ones are battery powered and the ones made for solar are pretty pricey. You think it's possible to retrofit a battery one for solar? Sensors are probably a good idea, but I haven't thought that far ahead.. or at least some way to connect it to Home Assistant so it can use weather forecasts or just remotely turn it off and on.

Now that you mention El Nino, I'm thinking of getting some kind of rain water collection though 🤔

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same. I've been wanting to get some sort of rain water collection system going. The new place we're moving into has sort of a raised garden bed in between two retaining walls - maybe something could be buried there in the future.

I don't have any experience doing anything like that, but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. Depending on what type of battery it takes, there will be a voltage that the whole thing is designed to work with. It's would then be a matter of setting up a small solar panel -> Charge Controller -> Battery System, and then making sure the output voltage from your battery is near enough what the unit requires. This can be done using voltage regulators to bring the voltage you are supplying, up or down to the required level.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

An example I just found of someone doing just that online

https://www.hardware.engineering/blog/water-hose-timer-conversion-to-solar