Keep Your Lawn Green This Summer – And Save Money!

Author: Julie Wills - MarCom/Monday, May 1, 2017/Categories: Tech Tips & Gadgets

You don’t have to water your lawn manually in the scorching heat of the summer. Water sprinklers can do that for you. Deciding when, and how much water to use – these are programmed into water sprinkler controllers.

But now, your job got even easier. There are several new gadgets that control irrigation systems that have been produced over the past few years, helping users water per the weather conditions of the day.

The Sprinkl Conserve is one of the newer devices on the market. It works with your existing water sprinkler controller, so there are no additional upgrades needed. Priced at just under $100, it latches on to your irrigation controller and interfaces via your wifi internet service to an app installed on your iOS / Android phone. The advantage is more than going wireless – the app also pulls local weather data and displays it for your benefit. This way, if there is a chance of rain, you can choose not to water your lawn on that particular day. Or if only light showers are expected, you could reduce the volume of water to be used by the sprinklers.  Overall, it is expected that you will save up to 30% on water usage.

The Sprinkl Conserve is not the only option on the market. There is the Blossom, which does all that the Sprinkl Conserve does, and more. It allows you to have separate settings for twelve zones in your lawn. This feature comes in handy if some areas receive shade and subsequently need to be watered less than others. The Blossom also makes use of the weather forecast for the week and calculates a watering schedule for you. In a test, it was observed that the Blossom stopped watering on the day after a shower – and it did this on its own. The Blossom costs just under $200.

The Rachio Iro does one even better. It has a 16-zone control, and can be controlled via voice assistants like Alexa. If you have an Amazon Echo or an Echo Dot, all you need to do is tell Alexa how and when you would like the lawn watered. The Rachio Iro integrates seamlessly with a lot of smart home automation systems and comes with a price tag of around $250.

The GreenIQ Smart Garden Hub is available for a similar price ($249). The advantage it has over the Iro is that apart from Wi-Fi, it also works with AT&T’s 3G signal. This feature might be useful in areas where the Internet is patchy. If rain is expected on the day, it turns off the watering. If the day turns out to be hotter and drier than what was forecast, the GreenIQ Smart Garden Hub increases the amount of water. On the whole, it promises a 50% savings on your outdoor water bills.

Installing one of these devices will allow you to enjoy the heat of summer, have a beautiful lawn, and save money all at the same time!

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