Let’s Take Smart Home Outside …
28 March 2021
Based on our own needs and what Debbie and I have heard from family and friends, motivations for integrating Smart Home technology are different for everyone. Smart Home technology will help automate tasks, save money, and conserve water and electricity just to start. But when you’re talking outdoors, all of the above apply.
As many people know, Debbie and I are “yard people.” We take a lot of pride in the landscaping of our homes but enjoy the work and maintenance of it just as much. And with the opportunity to design and build from scratch again we’re pretty fired up. With the weather warming up and the prospect that we may be finalizing our floor pan soon, we’re looking toward planning the rest of the lot.
As we’ll be dealing with an acre it’ll represent a lot of maintenance long term. So incorporating smart technology will be a huge asset in the future. I know this as we had a little smaller lot in Minnesota and mowing it was a chore. It did have a sprinkler system which saved a lot of time however. It wasn’t a smart solution but was automated through scheduling and even had a sensor attached to the outside of the home that would turn off the system if it detected rain.
I’ll address smart lawn mowing more later but will cover smart irrigation systems today.
While there are a few smart irrigation controllers that will work with garden hoses or other off-the-rack equipment, most are designed to work with true irrigation controllers that connect to their own water supply. These feature motorized valves and dedicated tubing to control the flow of water throughout your yard. Installing a real sprinkler system can be a huge task that requires professional help, especially if you have a large yard or gardens. Installing or upgrading to a smart controller from an analog system isn’t difficult. Debbie and I will consult with a landscaping designer first to figure out the layout of our property. Working around that design and taking into account gardens, plant/tree species water needs, drainage and hardscape, it should simplify installing a sprinkler system from scratch, and the planning of our zones in advance.
Probably the biggest single decision you need to make with a controller is whether you want a device that includes onboard controls — buttons and a readout directly on the controller that allow you to use it without an app. This can be handy if you have multiple people using the system or don’t want to set them up on the app. Systems without on-device controls generally lack any kind of display except for status lights indicating whether it’s working, so remember you’ll need the app to do anything with it.
Another consideration is whether you’re mounting the unit inside or outside your home. If outside, you’ll need a weatherproof enclosure for the system. Some vendors sell separate indoor and outdoor versions of their controllers. Others sell an outdoor enclosure as a separate add-on.
Regarding the zones I mentioned earlier, a zone is an area controlled by a valve and its connected irrigation tubing. If you have four valves, you have four zones. Your controller needs to have enough capacity to support all the zones in your system. Eight zones is common, but units supporting as few as six zones and as many as 16 zones are currently available.
How often you want to water is another consideration. For us, this will be determined by the plants and trees we decide on and their water needs. Outside of the actual lawn, our plans include fruit trees and grapes I want to cultivate. These will determine during the different seasons, based on our location in west Texas, if we need to water every day, every other day or even on specific days of the week. Not every controller can handle complex schedules so look closely at your options before buying. A few controllers can even import legal watering restrictions information for your zip code, to ensure you aren’t watering on prohibited days. This is the type of special automation I particularly love about smart home technology.
It’s also helpful to be notified when your watering system is running, but different solutions deal with the mechanics differently. Push notifications are common, but many only notify you when the watering has completed, not when it starts, which is arguably more useful. Email and text notifications aren’t common, so considering a system that supports IFTTT if you want to get fancy with notifications.
One of the great things about smart watering systems is access to local weather and environment via the internet to optimize water delivery. Some work better than others with this though options that skip watering when it’s raining can be a bonus feature. Another great smart feature of these systems is that a few integrate with smart home hubs. Some even include support by Amazon’s Alexa which is of particular interest to us as we’ve built a lot of smart home technology around it. I expect the smart home capabilities of sprinkler systems to improve as these products mature.
There are a number of smart solution options for your yard. Rachio has been a leader as their Rachio 3 succeeds the second-generation Rachio as the best smart sprinkler controller on the market.
The new model is fairly easy to install and the company has made various improvements to its app. It’s available in both 8- and 16-zone configurations so it’s flexible from a solutioning perspective. There’s also an outdoor enclosure if you can’t install the device indoors.
Orbit has been around the world of irrigation for quite some time but playing catch-up with Rachio in the smart home market. Orbit’s second-generation B-hyve smart sprinkler controller has lots of bells and whistles and it can be mounted outdoors without an enclosure, although it’s not completely waterproof.
If you water your landscaping with a garden hose or simple drip irrigation, instead of an in-ground sprinkler system, Orbit’s B-hyve Smart Hose Watering Time is vastly superior to conventional non-connected timers, and Orbit’s app can control several of them independently.
All of these options above are fairly inexpensive considering the features and benefits. But if you’re looking for a budget smart sprinkler controller and don’t have a lot of zones to cover, Wyze may be the answer. The Wyze Sprinkler Controller was just released late last year at just $50 and I actually purchased one on pre-order. I wanted to test it and figured for the cost I couldn’t go wrong if it was a bust. From a comparison perspective it’s app integrated like the Rachio and Orbit options, has many if not all of the same features but is currently limited to 8 zones. It will also need an enclosure if you plan to mount it outdoors.
I’ll follow up once we have more of the solution defined but I wanted to get this out there as it may help some of you in the decision making stage this spring around integrating smart technology in your lawn irrigation. Watering our lawn was always a chore I took seriously but was time consuming. The addition of automating this as part of our over all smart home solution only makes sense and I’ll gladly welcome the time back for more important things. If you’re using a smart solution out there to automate your lawn irrigation we’d love to hear from you, especially if they’re one I’ve highlighted above.
As for our next steps, Debbie and I are waiting to get “near-finished” floor plans back from the architect. I’ve also reached out this week about getting site prep started on our lot. I should have a proposal back from a contractor on that this coming week. If we decide to move forward on that I’ll follow up on it and post pics of the process. Until next week …
