Why I’m Building a Real IoT System

🌱 The Motivation

Hydroponics, growing plants without soil, opens the door to fully automated, self-sustaining agricultural systems. But most “smart garden” setups today are just toys.

I wanted more:

Real-time observability
Robust data pipelines
Scalable backend
OTA updates
Embedded ML on the edge
Automation

Enter the ESP32 family.

🔍 The Discovery

I had previously worked with Raspberry Pi and Arduino before, but the ESP32 ecosystem felt different: cheaper, more powerful, and purpose-built for IoT. After testing several variants:

ESP32-S3: with vector instructions and AI acceleration.
ESP32-CAM:for image capture and edge CV.
ESP32 with OLED: for simple UX/display at the edge.

📝

Note

I saw the potential for a clean, modular system, that can be powered by Rust, traced with OTEL, monitored end-to-end and with the option to integrate some MLOPS / FirmwareOps.

🏆 The goal

The end goal is to build a full hydroponics system, but for now, we will start with something simpler.

Exploring Rust for embedded devices.
Integration of OTA server and full control of FirmwareOps.
Platform monitoring.
Integration with a data and analytics platform.
Monetization.

🚧 What’s Next

Over the next few weeks I’ll be expanding this system:

RustESP32MQTTRabbitMQPostgreSQLOpenTelemetryGrafanaPrometheusMLflowRedisAxum

Add OTA server in Axum + Redis.
Full MLOps pipeline with edge inferencing.
Monitor power, water, and nutrient sensors.
Weather station.
Automatic adjustments (fan, light, water pump).
Real-world testing with real plants.

🧠 Zenthos Architecture (Core Sensor Flow)

🧱 Full System Overview

🔚 Final Thought

Zenthos is my commitment to full-stack, edge intelligence. If you're building in this space, let's talk! I want to hear your thoughts.

I will expand about the architecture in the next post.