Khaberni - A team from Spelman College in Atlanta developed a device known as "PlantGPT", which turns the silent data from a houseplant into audible speech, with a female voice in a posh British accent.
The idea of the device seems simple at first glance, but it touches on something real that had not been addressed before, as many people acquire plants and then fail to understand what they need until they wilt. However, with this technology, you can talk to your flowers, with phrases that sound crazy like "Hello there, cactus".
How does the device work?
The device collects plant data via sensors connected to an Arduino board, then sends it to the "ChatGPT" model which analyzes the data and issues recommendations in the form of conversation sentences expressed through text-to-speech technology.
The result? Your plant tells you if it needs water, fertilizer, or light, in a humorously quaint manner, like saying: "I hope you don't expect me to thrive in these extremely harsh conditions".
And the voice comes out with a posh British accent announcing the plant's need for fertilization or improvement of poor lighting conditions, which provides the caretaker with precise data instead of relying only on visual observation.
From the idea to the first prize
Grace Birch started working on this idea three years ago, which bore fruit in November 2025 by winning first place at the AAAS Exhibition for Innovation and Manufacturing, which hosted more than 100 participants from 19 teams in Washington D.C., according to the "New York Post".
In a related context, the ambition does not stop at balcony pots, as the team sees the next step as expanding the application of the device to include small farms and urban gardens, contributing to monitoring crop health and enhancing food security for local communities.
