Sick of constantly filling your pets' water dish, or even forgetting to? Hook this device up to any household water supply and watch the magic happen!

I have always thought it would be so nice to not worry about filling pets' water dishes, and as much as I forget to do so, my pets probably think the same. What I came up with to solve this problem is an automatic, wifi-enabled pet water dish that can both monitor and control its water level. Starting with the hardware, I used an HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensor placed above the water to measure the percent the dish is filled. The code running the machine includes a custom smoothing function to remove any outlying data the sensor provides. When the dish is below 60 percent, it will activate a 12V solenoid valve controlled by a relay switch in short intervals until the level reaches 85%. The solenoid valve is normally closed, so if something went wrong with the program, it should not overflow the dish. On the breadboard can be seen a 16 by 2 LCD display that shows the water level and amount the pet has drank in Liters in the last 24 hours. There is also a manual fill button on the board.

The device is connected to the internet through an app called Blynk. I customized a panel of Blynk widgets in the app to display another virtual LCD, another manual filling button, a visual display of the water level, and a rolling history chart of what the pet has drunk in the past few minutes or even the past half year. The device can be hooked up to any fridge ice maker water line and it will handle the pressure. More importantly, it will keep your pets healthy and happy!

A Visual Guide to the Aqua-Matic Water Dish

A few close up photos of my device.

Operation Video [TURN ON SUBTITLES FOR INFO!!}

Watch the device in action. Please note that the device is not connected to a water supply so it is filled manually with a cup of water. The valve still operates as if it were connected to water!