9 Devices For A Smart Garden

Why do you need automation for your garden?

As fantastic as a fully automated garden may sound, it is important that people know what are their goals for a smart garden, before making any purchase. Turning your regular garden - or building one from scratch - into a rather complex smart system including new appliances and devices, definitely requires deep planning to make it work properly.

It is important to mention the roles of smart garden devices. The first one is to help and encourage your garden to flourish in the best way possible. The other function of smart garden devices is purely sense driven - like happens with plant sensors - but, they are also helpful in gathering information about your garden.

You need to know the reasons why you want to have a smart garden, so before anything, ask yourself these questions:

• Are you interested in having an eco-friendly garden that conserves water for both lowering the bills and protect the environment?
• Are you looking to save time when conducting your daily gardening routines?
• Are you ready to make an investment in devices and appliances so you can spend more time doing other things?
• Do you know the type of signal you want for your garden? Bluetooth and Wifi work perfectly indoors but there may be issues using them outdoors, do you know about any other signal options available?

If you already own a smart home then you know that communication between devices is crucial. Think about the communication protocols too before making any decision. 

These nine devices are a new take on gardening, that will change the way you used to think about conducting your garden’s routine maintenance.

Weather Sensors

Also known as weather stations, they help you learn more about your garden. These devices are for the real garden enthusiasts who are all about plants and consider them as part of the family. Now, weather stations are the perfect addition to any smart garden.

You can monitor wind, rainfall, temperature and get diverse reads and statistics from the data you receive. This valuable feedback will give you insights that will make your garden thrive. Moreover, if you also have indoor plants, weather stations can help you improve the greenery inside.

There are a few brands offering quality weather stations. Loxone, a big name in the smart home industry, knows that smart gardens need protection from the elements. 

They've designed weather stations that guarantee reliable & accurate weather data for any purpose. This weather station will record your exact locations brightness, temperature, rain and wind

Loxone has gone the extra mile in delivering weather solutions for its customers. Their weather stations can gather up to 66 hours of weather forecast data in advance. Loxone offers the possibility of preventing your house from:  

*Overheating: the weather station will act upon weather conditions and forecast data to conduct fully automated tasks.

* Storms: Your smart home can take care of shading and awning for you. If there's heavy rain and you're not home, the Loxone experience will allow your home to know how to react after getting localised wind measurements.

Moreover, Loxone will help you with your garden irrigation. Your garden will be irrigated based on accurate weather forecasts. That way you’ll have a beautiful garden with a perfect moisture balance that will save you money and time.

Buy Loxone Weather Station Air

Smart Sprinklers

Watering the lawn can be either relaxing or a major hassle. It simply comes down to how you feel about standing for hours with a hose, some people find it therapeutic and some find it boring.

If you already have a regular sprinkler system, which definitely takes the burden off this rather boring task, the problem is that most sprinklers are operated manually which means that you’ll be required to operate the device from time to time. The market does offer some sprinklers with electronic timers but they can be very limited in scope, so there’s no smart solution there.

Now, smart sprinklers do provide a greater advantage. Their technology combines the precision of a timed sprinkler system alongside a much more reliable and robust functionality.

There’s no need to stand up and manually operate the sprinkler you can use your mobile, tablet or laptop to adjust your smart sprinklers so you can start your gardening even if you’re not physically present in your home.

In addition to its benefits, smart sprinklers use online weather reports and data from your garden in order to determine the right amount of water your grass needs at all times.

Smart sprinklers are a fantastic option that will help you save time and money plus make a huge contribution to help the planet’s environment. You can establish communication channels between security cameras and smoke detectors so they turn into a fantastic smart team that helps your garden thrive the way it’s supposed to be.

Automated Lawn Mowers

Mowing the lawn is by far one of the most time-consuming tasks a garden could have, but its tediousness is only as big as the importance this task entails in benefitting your garden. What happens when you don’t have the time or the willingness to mow the lawn? A ride-on mower could be the best solution here, but what if your garden space isn’t that big to fit such a large piece of machinery to cut the grass?

A robotic lawn mower will free space in your schedule to focus on alternate tasks. It’s important to know that robotic lawn mowers can be rather expensive so it’s best to take a look at how economically viable it is to access one of them.

Think about how many hours of your life you’ve invested in mowing the lawn and consider that when assessing the economic sense that would represent owning a robotic lawnmower.

A good side of robotic lawn mowers is that they run on electricity, not fuel which means an additional environmental pro, because it reduces dangerous fumes, unlike petrol mowers.

Physical wires are implemented so you can trace the boundaries plus you can adjust the lawn mower to fit your own garden requirements. You don’t have to worry about rain falling and damaging your robotic lawn mower, as it comes with rain sensors so it can stay indoors if it starts raining.

Soil Sensors

Water is crucial to any garden regardless if its a smart one or not, but you must have the right soil, otherwise, none of your plants will grow as expected. We all know this, right? But how do we know if we have good moisture and fertiliser levels? Do you know about your garden’s temperature and light intensity levels? Have you ever measured them?

These are important matters that define the prosperity of your garden. People can take advantage of smart sensors to gather data and analyse it. All of these statistics and forecasts are sent to your mobile device, letting you know when is the right time to water or feed your plants. You’ll know exactly what to do in the event of light or temperature issues that can compromise your garden’s growth.

While a smart soil sensor isn’t vital for your garden, it is definitely a good tool that’ll bring the automation element to your garden and in the end, you’ll have a fully flourished garden effortlessly.

Automated Pool Cleaner

Not everyone can enjoy having a pool in their garden or at all, but if you do, then you know the type of hassle that cleaning and maintaining a pool can be. People can opt to hire cleaning pool service but that can represent a major, unnecessary expense.

Investing in an automated pool cleaner is the best way to cut the necessity of hiring pool cleaning staff, yet getting the same clean-up quality. Of course, this is not a vital decision and you can linger a little bit while you decide whether to make such an investment, but it's an automated solution that truly represents a relief. You just need to consider both the size of your budget and the type of pool you have.

Choose if you want to enjoy the comfort of your own automated pool cleaner or just grab a rake and do it yourself.

Buy AquaStar Air 2

Outdoor Lighting

Lighting is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to enter the world of home automation, both indoors and outdoors. Smart lighting will prove a major aid if you want to light up the patio or driveway and the major brands have all kinds of solutions to fill your smart garden lighting needs.

Philips is one big smart lighting reference, they offer waterproof smart outdoor lighting in the shape of single bulbs to wall-mounted lights. You can wirelessly connect and synchronise multiple lights along with waterproof lights to make the complete lighting setup for your smart garden.

Besides bulbs and wall-mounted lights, there’s also strip lighting that provides a whole new perspective of what smart lighting can be. You can take smart lighting literally everywhere because strip lighting is portable.

You can illuminate your path with colour changing lights, this will make all your visitors feel the warmest welcome. Some of these lighting solutions are solar-powered which is also a major environmental plus.

In addition to all of these features you can synchronise lighting and security, so if one of your security cameras spot irregular activity it will trigger the lights. This can be the greatest burglar detector ever made. 

Smart lighting outdoors for your garden is the best way to enhance security around the perimeter, there’s not a single burglar willing to go through all these precautions, they’d rather move on for a less secured residence.

Alongside motion detectors, you can use smart motion-activated floodlights for those occasions when you arrive late at night and have no light available to show the way. Smart lighting does make your life easier plus it helps enhance your house’s security.

Smart Sunshades

A well-equipped garden is a fantastic place to have great conversations and for everyone to have a great time. Solar parasols are a great option. Regular parasols are very helpful, but also tiresome because you need to open/close them manually. 

New automated versions of sunshades allow users to operate the unit through the push of a button.

Outdoor Entertainment

The amount of time you spend in your garden is proportional to how good the weather is, this means that if you want to enjoy your time around your garden you need to invest in waterproof devices.

Outdoor TVs and waterproof screens are the best options to enjoy quality time with family and friends. People can implement weatherproof speakers or sound bars to have a perfect audio experience on its own, without relying on your indoor audio system. 

In addition to smart audio and video for your garden, there are also smart grills suitable for your smart garden. These solutions take care of food while you can be entertaining your guests. All of these devices will send notifications to your mobile device once they complete their task.

Once you decide that you want to automate your garden, it all comes down to your specific needs. You need to know exactly what is it that you want to accomplish by having a smart garden.

Try to make the most of this special project without spending too much, find the right solution that fits your budget thus making a great connection between your smart house and your new smart garden.

If you’re not sure on how to start a garden automation project make sure that you get in touch with the real experts who can guide you through having the smart garden of your dreams.