The Hydrobuddy open source hydroponic nutrient calculator – which has been used extensively by both professional and amateur growers for the past 11 years – is finally making the leap to the Android platform. This is a big leap, as many growers – especially in developing countries – lack access to a PC but have easy access to Android phones. Thanks to the effort of the LAMW development team – who made the development of Android apps using Lazarus possible – I have been able to recode and port HydroBuddy to mobile and will release it for free and with NO ads within the next couple of weeks within the Google Playstore. The source code is already available on github and will be updated as the application development process continues.
The HydroBuddy Android application will include most of the features present in the desktop application. It will include all the same substances and formulations that are included in the desktop application and will allow you to perform the same types of calculations you do on the regular application. It is however true that some functionality will be missing initially. The “Copy Commercial Nutrient Formulation” section has not been implemented yet, neither have the “Water Quality Parameters”, EC estimations, or calculation of instrumental errors. The “Concentration from weights” and “set weight” calculations are also missing at this point in time.
Right now, the HydroBuddy application is in its internal testing stage, which means that only people who I add to the testing group are able to download and use the application. If you want to participate in this testing phase, you can download HydroBuddy in your Android device through this link. If you participate in this process, please share meaningful feedback about the application with me. This feedback can be left as a comment in this post as well.
The port to Android is expected to be a stepping stone towards HydroBuddy v2.0, which will include a complete recoding of several portions of the calculator. This will be done in order to implement a more flexible database structure that allows for more effective saving and sharing of the inputs and outputs of the program. The aim of this is to allow growers of all origins: hobbyists, industry professionals, or researchers, to exchange complete calculation sets and allow for a much more profound use of the calculator as a community-building tool.
Sadly there is no iOS version planned, since I do not own, or plan to own, any Apple devices, and therefore cannot program/compile/test code in this platform. However, the licensing terms of both the desktop and mobile versions of the application do allow anyone to port and publish the application in iOS, provided it is non-commercial and released for free, with no ads and under the same licensing terms (GPLv2).
