Watering system control box containing a solenoid valve to allow water from the tap into the distribution pipes.
Sometimes you're not around to water the plants, so you need either someone or something to do it for you. I chose the latter, building a little automatic system for our balcony. In terms of hardware, it consists of a power supply, point-of-load converter, Raspberry Pi, valve solenoid driver, water valve, water supply and water pipe with nozzles going to the plants. Software-wise, it uses a simple systemd service running with a timer on the Pi.
Since there is a lot to describe about this project, I put it on a dedicated page here.