Smart Garden GEAR
Spring is here, so here’s our guide to the smart garden accessories that can help you tackle the lawn and other outdoor chores
Spring is in the air, and summer’s arriving soon… it’s time to get control of the yard, if you haven’t already. The back yard is an oasis of peace and quiet for many, a place where you can relax, or an absorbing hobby for people who enjoy cultivating plants and vegetables. However, it can also be hard work, whether it’s mowing and watering the lawn, eliminating weeds, or keeping an eye on plants that need just the right conditions to flourish. Fortunately, there’s a wide variety of smart products now available that can help out with many of these tasks and ensure that your home looks its best all year round.
The lawn ranger
One of the most tedious and time-consuming chores for any gardener is mowing the lawn. Robotic lawnmowers promise to do all the hard work for you. None of them is cheap, unfortunately, but they’ll earn their keep if they save you time year after year – and perhaps prevent you from putting your back out as well. If you want to be king of the lawn, take a look at the LawnBott range. Prices start at over $1,700 for a machine that can handle around a third of an acre, while the top of the range LB300EL model, suitable for two-acre lots, retails at a cool $4,999. That kind of
money gets you quieter and more reliable motors, adaptive automatic programming (so it modifies its schedule according to how your grass is growing), advanced direction control from the mower’s Cube 3D compass, and the ability to set up four separate mowing zones. Note that the compatible app is actually called Ambrogio Remote.
The Robomow range is also pretty expensive, with the top-of-the-range RS630 model trimming your bank balance by more than $2,000, but it’s also built like a tank and includes features such as the ability to divide larger gardens into separate zones. It offers a
watering is a key part of maintaining plants, and smart watering systems can help
superpowered TurboMow option for that tricky “first cut of the year,” and boasts an impressive companion app that provides remote control and status reports.
Water world
Watering is another key part of maintaining your plants, and many people already have simple sprinkler systems to help with this, of course. Many of these are fairly basic, but there are several smart watering systems that give you many more options, such as the Blossom Smart Watering Controller ($199), which provides precise control over multiple watering zones within your yard.
If you just tend to use a faucet attachment for watering, you can still go smart with the Melnor Wi-Fi Aquatimer ($150). This unit fits onto your existing garden faucet, and provides four separate water outlets that you can control individually from the companion app. It works with Melno’s Automatic Rain Delay feature (which is fairly self-explanatory), but you’ll need to buy the additional AquaSentry sensor ($40).
Plant life
If you really want to take a close interest in the well-being of your plants, you could also invest in a plant sensor. One of the best known models is the Flower Power sensor from Parrot, the company behind those headline-grabbing minidrones. Flower Power is a pretty simple option, costing about $60 and consisting of a little plastic sensor that’s designed to look a bit like a twig. You stick it into the soil by your plants and it uses Bluetooth to report back to your iPhone app with information on temperature, moisture, and fertilizer levels.
Also popular is the Koubachi range of Wi-Fi Plant Sensors (between $109 and $229), which include features such as infrared sensors and thermometers for both soil and air temperature. However, Koubachi was recently taken over by the German company Gardena, and has announced that it will end support for its existing products by the end of 2018, so that’s definitely something to bear in mind. There are other sensors available, such as PlantLink from Oso Technologies, for $79 for a base station and sensor, and additional sensors can be purchased at $35 each.
Plants aren’t the only things that grow in gardens, of course. You can even get smart sensors for your pond, to help care for the wildlife within, such as Seneye’s range of water monitors, which come in Home ($149), Pond ($169) and Reef ($199) versions for indoor and outdoor use.
These monitor temperature, pH levels for acidity and alkalinity, and ammonia levels, and can send warnings to their iPhone app if they detect anything that might harm your fish or other pond life.