Build Guide

Section 01

Safety first

Section 02

Meet FLORA

FLORA is a low white console that sits beside a plant. Two speakers lie flat in the wings, the Raspberry Pi 5 and its audio HAT sit between them, and a raised spine on a purple band carries the halo ring and the light sensor. A capacitive probe goes into the plant's soil on a cable from the back.

Spec	Value
Size	188 × 118 mm tray, 46 mm tall at the spine
Compute	Raspberry Pi 5
Audio	Waveshare WM8960 Audio HAT (built-in mics) and two 8 Ω 5 W speakers
Sensors	Adafruit 4026 soil probe, 4162 VEML7700 light, 5776 SHT41 temperature and humidity, on a 5625 STEMMA QT hub
Light	Adafruit 1643 NeoPixel Ring 12 under a printed halo lens
Voice	OpenAI Realtime. Default model gpt-realtime-2.1-mini, voice shimmer
Memory	Local SQLite on the Pi. No recordings or transcripts stored

Voice is online

Microphone audio goes to OpenAI while FLORA is running, billed to your own OpenAI account. The sensor, LED and memory commands work without an API key.

Section 03

Parts and tools

Nothing ships with FLORA, so this is your shopping list. The part numbers are the exact boards the enclosure was modelled around. The full list, kept current, is BOM.md in the flora-cad repository.

Section 04

Printing the parts

The STL folder holds ten files, each already turned to its print orientation and sitting on the bed. Walls, floor and top are 2.4 mm. Everything fits a 256 mm bed.

Section 05

Assembly

The order from FLORA_SPEC.md. Nothing is screwed from the top or the front.

1. 1

   Set the inserts

   • Base: four M2.5 on the Pi bosses, two M2 on the temperature sensor bosses at the front left.
   • Spine top: three M2 around the halo opening, two M2 beside the light opening, two M2 on the hub bosses at the rear.
   • Spine posts: two M3 in the bottom of the front posts, two M3 in the rear tabs.
2. 2

   Temperature sensor, Pi and speakers

   Screw the SHT41 to the base floor with two M2 × 5 (the other two bosses are locating pins). Seat the Pi with the audio HAT on its four bosses and fit four M2.5 screws. Lay a speaker flat in each wing, drivers up, and glue or zip-tie them down. Plug the speaker leads into the HAT.

3. 3

   Deck and collar

   Lay the deck on the base so its lip seats, then the purple collar on top. Both are clamped by the spine later.

4. 4

   Fit out the spine

   Working from inside the spine: the halo lens, the NeoPixel ring with its LEDs up, then the retainer with three M2 × 5. Push the light window in from inside with a dab of glue, then the VEML7700 with two M2 × 5. Screw the hub to its bosses with two M2 × 5.

5. 5

   Connect everything

   Plug the ring jumpers into the header (see Wiring). Plug the light sensor, the temperature sensor, the Pi cable and the soil cable into the hub.

6. 6

   Close it up

   Lay the soil cable in the notch at the bottom of the spine's rear wall. Lower the spine over the collar and deck, drive two M3 × 30 up through the base's front posts, and two M3 × 6 through the rear wall into the spine's tabs. Stick the four feet into the recesses underneath and glue the purple inlays into their pockets.

Section 06

Wiring

Section 07

Software setup

On the Pi, with I2C enabled and your user in the i2c group. The FLORA repository's README is the full reference.

git clone https://github.com/patmakesapps/FLORA.git
cd FLORA
python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env
chmod 600 .env

.venv/bin/python -m flora check
.venv/bin/python -m flora sensor-test
.venv/bin/python -m flora led-test
.venv/bin/python -m flora audio-test
.venv/bin/python -m flora voice-test
.venv/bin/python -m flora run