There are plenty of smart home gadgets on display at CES this year, but honestly, what I’m most excited about is the prospect of autonomous lawn care. Lucky for me (and my poor, neglected garden), both Moen and Rachio are releasing new smart irrigation gadgets that can be used to remotely control watering locations and frequency in your garden, keeping plants healthy and reducing water wastage. And only one of them requires that you already have an expensive irrigation system.
First, Moen is expanding its Smart Water Network – a system of products designed to control and monitor water usage – with a new Smart Sprinkler Controller and Smart Wireless Soil Sensors. Moen claims that the Smart Sprinkler Controller can be installed on an existing irrigation system in less than 30 minutes without mentioning any compatibility limitations. Unfortunately, this system is not compatible with Matter, but Moen has confirmed this The edge that it integrates with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Users can track water usage and estimated savings, as well as set custom watering schedules and enable seasonal features such as skip weather, which uses local weather data to turn off your sprinklers when rain is forecast in the area. It’s worth noting that most irrigation systems today offer similar features, but the Moen Smart Sprinkler Controller can be monitored and controlled via a smartphone app rather than just the unit itself – similar to devices already offered by Orbit and Rachio.
It is available in 8 and 16 zone models that allow you to manage different areas of your garden independently (depending on your irrigation system) if you have plants with variable water needs. Pricing for the Smart Sprinkler Controller starts at $179.99.
As much as I’d love to be a green-fingered goddess, I’m actually bad at keeping most plants alive and healthy. I’m too careless with my watering habits and rarely manage to determine how much of the stuff they need, so I’ve got my eyes set on the Moen Smart Wireless Soil Sensors in particular. These can be used to detect accurate soil moisture and temperature levels between 2.5 and 5 inches deep, and feed that information to the Moen Smart Sprinkler Controller to automatically adjust watering schedules in sections where more or less moisture is required reducing unnecessary water wastage and helping to keep your plants in optimum health.
The Moen Smart Wireless Soil Sensors are completely wireless, so you don’t need to dig trenches in your lawn to run cables, and they should be level with the ground when placed (to avoid any accidents with garden tools). Each sensor contains a lithium battery that lasts up to six years, though Moen hasn’t mentioned whether these are replaceable. Prices for the Moen Smart Wireless Soil Sensors, which are sold separately from the Moen Smart Sprinkler Controller, start at $70.
While Rachio already offers smart irrigation controllers, the latest gadget is for those of us who still rely on our garden hose to water it. Rachio’s Smart Hose Timer was announced at CES this week and is aimed at people who haven’t yet installed expensive irrigation systems. At $99, it’s a more affordable offering that connects directly to an outdoor faucet, hose, or drip system. The Smart Hose Timer is controlled via the free Rachio app and can also create customizable watering schedules from day to day. Local weather logging can instruct the timer to skip watering automatically based on real-time rain data for each scheduled watering session instead of the entire day, so other sessions are not skipped unnecessarily. The Rachio Smart Hose Timer comes with the valve and Wi-Fi hub and will be available in March 2023.
