Noé Geste
experiment[01] · Souveraineté 2026

A watering system the grower can own.

I started Souveraineté with a friend who grows vegetables. We asked what irrigation would look like without a cloud service or locked hardware. I built the identity, interface and working simulator; the field hardware is designed but not deployed.

Concept, brand, copy, design & build Systems thinking · Identity · Product UI · French copy Working simulator · concept AGPLv3 · code public
Souveraineté 2026, botanical-terminal interface with the five-zone network map
The botanical-terminal identity, on the product itselfworking_simulator
ChallengeDesign irrigation a grower can read, repair and run locally.
My roleConcept, system design, identity, French copy, product UI and simulator.
TeamSolo, with a pilot grower setting the practical constraints.
Timeline2026 · ongoing side project.
ToolsAI-directed design and build; open arbitration logic.
LicenseAGPLv3, with public code.
StatusWorking simulator · concept. Hardware layer (Pi 5, Arduino Opta) designed, not deployed.
NextField deployment with the pilot grower.
01 · Context

The grower set the rules.

Many agricultural systems send data to someone else's cloud and hide the decision logic. We wanted a local system the grower could understand and repair with ordinary tools.

My friend set three hard constraints. He must be able to bypass the electronics with a valve. A physical panic button must stop the system. Irrigation decisions must still work without a connection. Those refusals shaped the design.

02 · The system

Three sources. One arbitration.

The Triangle de Vérité compares three independent sources before water moves. I designed it on the assumption that any sensor can be wrong.

S1 · Science

What theory says

Penman-Monteith evapotranspiration from FAO weather data estimates today's need.

S2 · Soil

What the ground says

Capacitive probes at six depths measure the root zone; a Kalman filter reduces noise.

S3 · Plant

What the plant says

Foliar infrared reads the leaf. Thermal stress gives the plant an immediate veto.

Science and soil feed a need-probability score tuned to the growing profile: conventional, MSV, permaculture or organic. If they diverge, the system enters doubt mode and asks the grower. A manual override always wins.

The Triangle de Vérité, three independent data sources feeding one arbitration
The Triangle de Vérité, as the interface explains itsources[3] · veto_biologique
03 · Architecture

Each layer can survive the others.

The proposed hardware uses a Pi 5, Arduino Opta controllers and five zones on a wired-and-radio network. Each layer has a fallback.

Autonomous nodes

Each Opta runs a 10 ms safety cycle, so a zone can keep irrigating if the Pi fails.

Hybrid network

RS-485 serves nearby zones. LoRa reaches parcels up to two kilometres away, with solar-powered remote nodes.

Hydraulic sanity

A master valve depressurises the idle network. A flowmeter flags a mismatch between expected and actual flow.

Human failsafes

A hardware panic button stops the system. A watchdog and manual valves provide separate fallbacks.

Confidence threshold

Below the threshold, the system pauses and asks the grower.

Safe-Switch succession

With AGPLv3 and public code, the planned six-month unlock gives the grower full admin if I disappear.

The arbitration rule in auditable pseudocode: the biological veto, stated in a few lines
No black box, the whole decision fits in fifteen auditable linesarbitrage.py
04 · The simulator

The part that works today.

The browser simulator covers six crops and four agronomic profiles across six zones. I can force a heatwave or disable a sensor, then watch the system enter doubt mode, trigger the plant veto or ask for help. It lets me test the logic before hardware exists in the field.

The six-zone simulator with per-zone decisions
Six zones, same weather, six different verdictssimulateur[6]
05 · Identity

A botanical terminal.

I mixed instrument-panel typography with botanical colour and seed-packet-like maps. The French copy follows the project's promise: pour que chaque maraîcher reste maître de sa terre. Dense telemetry stays readable, with the grower in control.

The mobile interface, botanical-terminal identity at phone width
The same identity at field width, a tool for outside, not for a deskmobile · fr
06 · Status

Sovereignty, expressed in every layer.

3
Independent data sources, one arbitration
6
Zones simulated, each deciding for itself
0
Cloud decisions required
Current status: the browser simulator works. The Pi-and-Opta hardware is a design, not a deployed system. Field testing with the pilot grower is next.

"The simulator lets me test the logic before I claim the hardware works."