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Planting a garden or laying sod on your yard is the easy part. Maintaining the leaves properly is the real challenge—and it’s one that only gets more difficult as the weather changes.
In recent years, smart home technology has spread abroad, and now you’ll find many wireless irrigation systems on the market that can take the hassle and hassle out of watering your plants. Whether you have a sprinkler system or an in-ground sprinkler system or you rely on an old-fashioned pipe, a number of smart watering systems are readily available. The good news: We’ll let you know no matter what kind of exterior you have.
Be sure to check out our other items manages backyard techincluding Best Bird Feeders, The Best Grills are Smart Grills, Top Quality Grills and Grills, Best Coolersand Best Pool Cleaning Robots.
What Can Smart Irrigation Systems Do?
On all sides, smart irrigation systems are created around the planning process. Although you can start watering manually with one of these tools, their real benefit is setting a recurring schedule so you can forget about them. The best systems offer advanced tools that allow you to set the days you choose per week or month, along with the time of watering and the amount of water you want to provide.
Most of all, the most advanced systems are what today are called “weather intelligence,” a fancy way of saying they’ll look to the Internet to find out what the weather is like and adjust watering depending on whether it’s raining or freezing. Many systems will also work with wireless soil monitors to give you the power to control soil moisture – helping you conserve as much water as possible.
What if I have an existing irrigation system?
If you already have an irrigation system with a traditional meter, upgrading to a smart irrigation system is easy. You’re simply removing your old controller and replacing it with a smart one, connecting the zone wires to the terminals inside the smart controller, just like they were in the old controller, and leaving the rest of the equipment. (Make sure the controller you buy has enough zones to support your infrastructure; controllers usually support 8 or 16 zones.)
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Photo: Chris Null
From there, you’ll use software to customize your landscape based on crop type, shade, and soil type. Many programs recommend watering times for each zone based on this information, and you can adjust these times as you go, zone by zone. For field hose installations, configuration is simple. Smart sprinklers connect to any standard pipe and can be placed anywhere in your yard. Alternatively, smart hose clamps attach to the spigot; you connect your sprinkler (or, in some cases, drip irrigation) to the meter. Mobile app features vary, but most are as advanced as regular smart sprinklers.
How I Test Smart Watering Systems
I’ve been testing smart sprinklers since 2017 in yards as large as 1.3 acres in California and Texas. My current sprinkler system is a permanent solution that spans 11 zones and includes both floor sprinklers and drip irrigation. For hose-based solutions, I try and connect to a regular spigot, usually in areas of grass and flowers.
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The Best Smart Controller for In-Ground Sprinkler Systems
Rachio
3 Smart Sprinkler Controller
I’ve tested over a dozen smart sprinkler controllers with my underground irrigation system, and the Rachio controller is the one I use every day. To be honest, there’s nothing surprising about the hardware, although it’s easy to connect component wires thanks to spring-loaded clips instead of screws, and the on-board controls are just the beginning.
The real magic is in the Rachio app. Here, you define your zones based on plant type, nose/drop type, soil type, sunlight, and slope. If you want to be wild, the advanced options allow you to put everything from deep roots to the amount of water loss you want to allow. Give each zone a name and a picture, and everything is presented in a familiar grid, which you can use as a point-and-click interface for manual irrigation if needed.
Rachio’s schedule can be set based on day or day, or flexible, and automatically adjusted based on the weather. The program’s logging system is comprehensive, it defines the time and time it runs – for each session and for each day. It’s easy to share access with my technical irrigation team, so they can periodically test areas for leaks or other problems without needing access to my garage, where the controller lives.
Some solid Smart Choices
Irrigreen 3.0 Starting at $2,089: Irrigreen is not just a ruler. It’s a cost, complete irrigation system which requires new plumbing and upgrading all your sprinkler heads to an Irrigreen “water painting” system. I wouldn’t remove the existing system, but if you’re setting up a sprinkler from scratch, it’s worth a serious look.
