One of the major issues in the world is the food shortage which leads to unending problems in the food sector. Thus, the demand in urban agriculture to address the issue of food security is rising. The production of goods in urban agriculture comes with problems, including water availability and limited lawn areas. With that, the researchers conducted this study to reduce the physical labor in growing plants and developed the Urbaine device, an automated solar-powered watering device maintaining the soil moisture content and reusing excess water from the plants to preserve water.

​

Developmental and evaluative research design was used in this study to develop and evaluate a project, ensuring the device's effectiveness and acceptability. The device was programmed with the necessary codes to run the device in the Arduino, while the frames, plant holder, and chambers were constructed separately. Three treatments were conducted using different volumes of water, T1 with 4.5L, T2 with 6L, and T3 with 7.5L, to be distributed equally into the three pots per treatment, while the control group received 4.5 liters of water.

​

Results show that the Urbaine device effectively maintained soil moisture as the moisture content did not have a value lower than 75%. It also reused stored water efficiently, accumulating 35,260mL of excess water volume within the seven days of observation. Moreover, the device successfully saved energy with an average power of 12.6V within 7.7 hours of running time. Additionally, the evaluators assessed the device using a weighted mean, and it was rated Highly Acceptable, having a grand weighted mean of 3.22 out of 4 in the overall rate of acceptability. This confirms that the device fulfilled its goal as an automatic watering device, allowing users to maintain soil moisture while saving energy and water in growing plants by reusing excess water.