Retiring into Edge AI (and a grow tent)

The dichotomy

This year, it became time for me to retire from my lifelong career in software development. Like most things, the situation was a dichotomy: I was tired of task lists and meetings and schedules and difficult people; but at the same time, I was having more fun making software than I ever had in my entire life, because of AI.

I’m one of those software developers that doesn’t fear being replaced by AI — it can’t, I’m retired; if I were a recent college grad I might see it differently. To the contrary, I’m very grateful that code generators want to do the boring part of my job: writing the actual code. I was so conflicted I couldn’t just walk away from software development during this moment, so I quit my job but didn’t quit making systems.

The realization

Growing cannabis is a hobby of mine, and now in retirement I’d like to take the time to refine my craft. By now the same realization I had is hitting you — I could use AI to grow weed!

Now, there are some web sites out there with AI baked in that’s supposed to help you in the same way. But those sites are in the cloud, and you have to upload your data to them before they can process it.

The build

So in my retirement I decided to learn Edge AI, so that I could create a device that would analyze my grow in real time without ever loading images or other data to the internet. I live in a state where growing is legal, but still not at the federal level.

I worked up a small device that works only on the local LAN, reads from cameras and sensors inside the tent, and performs an ongoing analysis — with diagnosis of deficiencies, pest detection, disease, and stress conditions. I also taught it to react to events like going from seedling to veg, the flip to 12/12, and so on, dispensing best-of-breed advice I collected by scraping published research specific to growing cannabis.

The first grow

About to run the first grow through it. Hope it doesn’t take over the world… Wish me luck.

Curious about the device itself? It’s at croplock.com. If you’d like to follow along — and hear when it’s ready — join the waitlist.