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BloomBuddy

BloomBuddy - your AI-powered plant care companion. Snap a photo, identify your plant, and get smart, personalized care tips to help it thrive.

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Inspiration

It all started with a simple observation — even when we water our plants regularly and give them the best care we can, some still fail to grow or suddenly wither away. This left us wondering why. Was it the sunlight? The soil? Or something we couldn’t easily notice? As nature lovers, we realized how difficult it can be to truly understand what a plant needs. There are thousands of species, each with unique requirements — and not everyone has expert gardening knowledge. That’s when the idea of BloomBuddy was born. We wanted to create an app that makes plant care smarter, simpler, and sustainable using the power of AI. An app that could identify plants instantly, detect health issues, and guide users with personalized tips from watering and sunlight to soil type, fertilizer, and even the plant’s medicinal or ecological benefits. With BloomBuddy, we aim to help people connect better with nature, reduce plant loss, and build a greener, more informed community — one plant at a time. 🌱

What It Does

BloomBuddy is an AI-powered mobile app that helps users identify, analyze, and care for their plants effortlessly. Users simply upload or click a picture of their plant — the app then uses a trained AI model to detect the plant species and analyze its health condition. Once identified, BloomBuddy provides detailed insights such as:

  • The plant’s name, family, and characteristics
  • Ideal sunlight, water, and soil requirements
  • Common diseases and preventive measures
  • Growth stage and seasonal care tips
  • Additional knowledge like medicinal benefits, toxicity, and cultural uses

All this data is stored securely using Firebase, allowing users to track their plants, monitor their health, and receive smart care suggestions anytime. In short, BloomBuddy turns your phone into your personal plant expert — helping you nurture your greens the smart way. 🌱

How We Built It

We built BloomBuddy using React Native and Firebase, integrating the powerful PlantNet API for AI-driven plant identification.

  • Frontend: Designed with React Native to deliver a seamless and responsive mobile experience for both Android and iOS users.
  • AI Integration: We used the PlantNet API, which analyzes uploaded plant images and identifies the species with high accuracy. It provides scientific and common names, plant families, and other taxonomy details.
  • Backend: Managed entirely through Firebase — handling authentication, Firestore database, and Storage for plant images and user data.
  • Data & Insights: After the AI returns plant data, the app enriches it with additional insights like watering needs, sunlight preference, medicinal benefits, and care tips.
  • Cloud Storage: Images uploaded by users are stored in Firebase Storage, and results are stored in Firestore for easy retrieval and plant tracking.
  • UI/UX: Focused on minimal design and usability, ensuring that anyone — from casual gardeners to plant enthusiasts — can use BloomBuddy effortlessly.

Together, these technologies bring AI and sustainability together, making BloomBuddy a smart companion for every plant lover. 🌿

Challenges We Ran Into

Building BloomBuddy wasn’t as easy as watering a plant — we faced several challenges along the way:

  • AI Integration: Leveraged the PlantNet API for accurate plant identification and taxonomy details, then fed the identified plant name to OpenAI to generate in-depth insights — including care tips, medicinal properties, and environmental relevance.
  • Firebase Setup: Setting up Firebase for authentication, database, and image storage required careful configuration and permission handling.
  • Data Enrichment: The PlantNet API gives identification data, but not care tips or medicinal uses so we had to design a structure to combine AI outputs with our own curated plant data.
  • Performance Optimization: Ensuring fast image uploads and responses without exceeding free-tier limits or API rate caps was a major challenge.
  • Cross-Platform Issues: Managing consistent UI and functionality across Android and iOS in React Native took multiple rounds of testing and debugging.
  • API Security: Protecting the PlantNet API key and Firebase credentials while maintaining smooth user experience required secure backend communication design.

Each of these challenges helped us learn more about AI integration, sustainable design, and real-world mobile app development — turning hurdles into growth, just like our plants. 🌿

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

  • Successfully integrated the PlantNet API and OpenAI to identify plants with high accuracy through image uploads.
  • Built a smooth and user-friendly React Native app with Firebase authentication and real-time storage.
  • Designed a rich plant information dashboard including care tips, habitat data, and medicinal benefits.
  • Created a meaningful product that helps people connect with nature and care for plants better.

What we learned

We learned how to integrate AI-powered APIs like PlantNet and OpenAI with Firebase and React Native, manage image data efficiently, and craft an intuitive experience for AI-driven plant care.

What's next for BloomBuddy

Next, we plan to add:

  • AI disease detection from plant images
  • Personalized watering and fertilizer reminders
  • Community plant sharing and learning features
  • Sustainability insights for eco-conscious gardening Our vision is to make BloomBuddy the all-in-one smart gardening companion for a greener world.
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