TAPPING INTO HIGH TECH...

You might have imagined garden hoses were immune to the touch of high tech. You thought wrong. It feels faintly daft plugging a junction-box-style gizmo on to a garden tap and standing over it swiping away on an iPad, but that fades away the first time you say: ‘Hey Siri, turn on the sprinkler.’ The Eve works with Apple’s Homekit app and controls water flow via a valve. It’s far simpler than most ‘smart’ systems: you just need a tap, it’s not fussy about what’s on the other end. You can schedule watering via the app or Siri, and it’s simple enough for mild technophobes to use without fear. You can switch it on remotely once it’s hooked up – so you can return from holiday to a garden in full bloom, not a desert scrub. Caveat: wait for the current hosepipe ban to end!