1. Problem

Onions suffer significant losses due to poor storage conditions, leading to a 25-30% market value loss. Farmers face challenges with weight loss, rotting, and sprouting, resulting in an economic loss of ₹11,000 crores annually.

2. Why I Chose This Problem

I have always been passionate about sustainability and finding ways to create useful solutions from waste. In my hometown, onion prices fluctuate drastically sometimes they are extremely high, and other times they drop significantly. During a visit to my grandmother’s town, I had a conversation with an onion farmer about why onions spoil so quickly. He explained that storage is the biggest issue if onions are exposed to high heat, they lose weight, and if they get too cold, they rot.

This conversation made me wonder whether a monitoring device existed for this problem. While temperature and humidity monitoring devices have been commercially available for over five decades, I found that there was no dedicated solution specifically for the Indian onion market. Realizing this gap, I decided to create a project that would have a meaningful impact and help farmers minimize their losses.

3. Solution

The proposed solution, Onion Octopus, is an IoT-based monitoring device that regulates storage conditions to reduce spoilage. It features real-time monitoring, alerts, and predictive analytics.

5. Technical requirements

Hardware Components:

• Microcontroller (ESP8266): To control sensors and handle data transmission.
• Temperature & Humidity Sensor (DHT22): To measure environmental conditions in onion storage.
• Power Supply (5V Lithium Battery): To power the device.
• LED Indicators : To provide visual alerts for temperature/humidity threshold breaches.

Software Components:

• Realtime Database (Google Firebase): To store and process sensor data.
• Mobile Application (Android): To display real-time data and send notifications to farmers.