DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LOW-COST IoT-BASED WEATHER STATION FOR SMART AGRICULTURE AND CLIMATE MONITORING

Weather monitoring is critical for agriculture and climate resilience. However, conventional weather stations are often expensive and inaccessible to smallholder farmers. This work presents the design and implementation of a low-cost IoT-based weather station using a NodeMCU ESP8266 microcontroller and a DHT11 sensor. The device measures temperature and humidity and transmits the data wirelessly to a cloud platform (ThingSpeak) for real-time visualization. The system was assembled with readily available components, demonstrating that affordable IoT devices can democratize access to environmental data. Laboratory tests showed stable temperature (~14–16 °C) and humidity readings over time, validating basic functionality. By providing local climate data, the weather station can support precision farming and climate-smart decision-making. Future work will expand the system to include additional sensors (e.g., rain, pressure) and integrate predictive analytics. This implementation underscores that simple IoT weather stations can empower communities with timely weather insights while contributing to climate action goals. Keywords: IoT weather station; low-cost sensors; precision agriculture; climate resilience; ESP8266; DHT11; environmental monitoring.