Smart irrigation solution
The global challenges of water scarcity, rising agricultural costs, and the need for sustainable farming have made smart irrigation not just a trend, but a necessity. Traditional watering systems often lack responsiveness, leading to water overuse and crop stress. Modern agriculture requires a platform that can bring automation, precision, and adaptability — exactly what ThingsBoard delivers.
ThingsBoard IoT Platform is purpose-built to address these needs with its robust architecture, supporting seamless integration of diverse sensors, reliable data collection via MQTT, CoAP, or HTTP, and powerful real-time analytics. By enabling farmers to monitor soil conditions, receive threshold-based alarms, and automate irrigation actions through intuitive rule chains, ThingsBoard ensures optimal water distribution and timely response to changing field conditions.
From small farms to enterprise-scale agricultural operations, ThingsBoard scales effortlessly thanks to its edge computing capabilities, multi-tenant model, and rich dashboard customization. It empowers agribusinesses to implement smart irrigation that not only conserves water and boosts yield, but also reduces manual labor, improves traceability, and aligns with long-term sustainability goals.
Solution structure of smart irrigation
In the smart irrigation setup, soil moisture sensors and water meters are installed in each field zone. These devices continuously collect real-time environmental data such as moisture level, temperature, and water flow. The data is transmitted via lightweight and reliable communication protocols such as MQTT, CoAP, or HTTP directly to the ThingsBoard platform.
Once received, data is processed by ThingsBoard’s rule engine, stored, and visualized on dashboards. If thresholds are exceeded—like low soil moisture—the platform can automatically trigger irrigation or notify personnel, ensuring timely response and water efficiency.
With flexible device provisioning, edge processing, and a multi-tenant architecture, ThingsBoard scales seamlessly from small farms to enterprise operations, supporting both manual oversight and fully automated control.
Smart irrigation dashboard structure
The smart irrigation dashboard on ThingsBoard provides a clear, real-time view of irrigation processes. It includes map-based tracking, sensor panels, scheduling tools, and alarm systems—enabling fast decisions, automation, and efficient water use across varied field conditions.
Applications of smart irrigation solution
This solution can be effectively used across multiple industries, addressing specific operational needs through real-time data, automation, and scalability powered by the ThingsBoard IoT platform:
Precision agriculture
Covers the need for data-driven water management by providing real-time moisture analytics, alarming, and automated irrigation, improving crop yield while reducing resource waste.
Municipal parks & landscaping
Solves the challenge of wide-area water efficiency by offering centralized dashboard control, alarm notifications, and device management for public green spaces.
Agri-Tech research & experimental farms
Meets the need for accurate environmental data collection and testing flexibility by enabling detailed telemetry tracking, custom rule chains, and rapid integration of new devices.
Smart greenhouses
Fulfills the demand for microclimate-based watering by supporting multi-zone sensor management and conditional scheduling, ensuring healthy plant growth with minimal manual intervention.
Golf courses & sports fields
Addresses the requirement for uniform turf quality with zone-specific moisture monitoring, historical analytics, and rule-based irrigation triggers to maintain optimal soil conditions.
Precision agriculture
Covers the need for data-driven water management by providing real-time moisture analytics, alarming, and automated irrigation, improving crop yield while reducing resource waste.
Smart greenhouses
Fulfills the demand for microclimate-based watering by supporting multi-zone sensor management and conditional scheduling, ensuring healthy plant growth with minimal manual intervention.
Municipal parks & landscaping
Solves the challenge of wide-area water efficiency by offering centralized dashboard control, alarm notifications, and device management for public green spaces.
Golf courses & sports fields
Addresses the requirement for uniform turf quality with zone-specific moisture monitoring, historical analytics, and rule-based irrigation triggers to maintain optimal soil conditions.
Agri-Tech research & experimental farms
Meets the need for accurate environmental data collection and testing flexibility by enabling detailed telemetry tracking, custom rule chains, and rapid integration of new devices.
Summary of smart irrigation
The smart irrigation solution built on ThingsBoard empowers users to manage irrigation processes intelligently, reduce water waste, and maintain crop health with precision. Leveraging real-time data collection, powerful automation, and rich visualizations, it enables scalable deployments across diverse sectors—from agriculture to urban landscapes. With its flexible architecture and low-code configurability, the solution can be rapidly deployed, customized, and expanded as needs grow.
ThingsBoard advantages
Security
ThingsBoard protects your data with industry-standard encryption algorithms like RSA and ECDSA. Secure communication is ensured via TLS (TCP) and DTLS (UDP). Role-based access control and audit logs further enhance platform security.
Data visualization
Visualize data with interactive, multi-state dashboards—no coding needed. Use built-in charts, gauges, maps, tables, and control widgets. Customize every detail via advanced settings or custom widget bundles. Real-time, low-latency updates supported via embedded web-sockets.
Connectivity
Connect devices directly to the platform via the following built-in protocols: HTTP, CoAP, MQTT, LwM2M, and SNMP. Connect devices in your local network to the cloud using ThingsBoard Gateway via Modbus, BLE, BACnet, OPC-UA, and other protocols.
Data processing
ThingsBoard allows you to define app logic using a drag-and-drop rule chain designer. Its scalable Rule Engine uses message queues like Kafka or AWS SQS for durable, reliable data processing. You can handle data within the engine or forward it to external systems.
Scalability and high availability
ThingsBoard supports high-availability cloud and on-prem deployments via Kubernetes or bare-metal. Its components scale horizontally and handle 18K+ vehicles and 5K+ devices in prod.
Multi-tenancy
ThingsBoard provides UI and API to manage tenants, customers, users, devices, and assets. Single tenant may have multiple tenant administrators and millions of devices and customers. It also offers out-of-the-box support of OTA updates for your smart meters.
