Tech to sort outdoor areas
1 audio SET UP SMART SUMMER SOUNDS
Upgrade your garden with outdoor speakers for yearround entertainment. ‘We recommend speakers are mounted at first-floor level, but there are also ways of disguising them as discrete spikes, fake rock shapes and custom colours that blend into your planting,’ explains Justin Rhodes of Chris Lewis Smart Home. With no walls or ceiling to deflect sound, your speakers will need to deliver high-quality audio. There are brands out there to suit most budgets, but the creme de la creme is the Sonance Landscape Series set of all-weather speakers. ‘Excellent outdoor systems not only produce great bass and sound depth, but also allow for accurate direction of the sound to avoid nuisance noise for neighbours.’ Make sure your system can be connected via a reliable wireless network; a professional company will work out the best position, and hide unsightly wires.
2 lighting ILLUMINATE PATHS AND BORDERS
There’s no excuse to be in the dark about state-of-theart outdoor lighting. Thanks to new smart systems, we can do everything, from switching lights on to changing dimmer settings, simply by tapping an app. Programming the lighting app with ‘scenes’ allows you to light up your garden accordingly. ‘If you hear a suspicious noise outside, you’ll require strong white lights,’ explains David Taylor of home automation company Cornflake. ‘Or, if you’re hosting a family gathering, you’ll want a relaxing ambient glow.’ Try Savant for customisable, preset lighting schemes at the touch of a button. And the benefits don’t stop there. Integrating your smart lighting with your home security system is a way to improve safety and peace of mind. By turning on specific alerts, the lighting system will warn you when it detects a person nearby.
3 watering MAKE A SPLASH THIS SUMMER
Gardening tech is becoming ever more ingenious. Take the Gardena Micro-drip system, for example. This supplies precisely the right amount to individual plants directly at the roots, saving time as well as up to 70% water when compared to conventional watering methods. The system works by feeding water through pipes to drip heads or sprinklers to supply specific plants or areas. You can then connect the system to an app so that it waters the garden to your own schedule. You can even combine it with a soil-moisture sensor, which will override the watering schedule if the soil moisture is sufficient, saving water. ‘It is very simple to install,’ explains Taryn Griesse of Gardena. ‘Simply measure the amount of pipe you need and calculate the number of sprinkler and drip heads required.’ Or try the starter kit, which has everything you need to get going.