Planting a garden or laying down sod for your yard is the easy part. Keeping that foliage appropriately hydrated, that’s the real challenge—and it’s one that just keeps going and going, only getting more complicated as the seasons change.
In recent years, interior smart home technology has spilled outside, and you’ll now find dozens of wireless watering systems on the market that can take some of the confusion and complexity out of irrigating your plants. Whether you have a sophisticated in-ground sprinkler or drip irrigation system or you rely on an old-fashioned hose, multiple smart watering solutions are readily available. The good news: We’ve got you covered no matter what type of outdoor environment you have.
Be sure to check out our other guides to backyard tech, including the Best Smart Bird Feeders, Best Grills and Smart Grills, Best Flat-Top Grills and Griddles, Best Coolers, and Best Pool Cleaning Robots.
What Can Smart Irrigation Systems Do?
Across the board, smart watering solutions are fundamentally designed around scheduling. While you can always initiate a manual watering run with one of these systems, their real value is in setting up a recurring schedule so you can basically forget about them. The best systems offer sophisticated scheduling tools that let you water on your chosen days of the week or month, along with the time of watering and the amount of water you want to deliver.
Best of all, the more sophisticated solutions include what’s now commonly known as “weather intelligence,” a fancy way of saying they will check the internet for local weather conditions and adjust watering based on whether it’s going to rain or freeze. Many systems will also work with wireless soil monitors to give you even finer control over ground moisture levels—and help you conserve as much water as possible.
What if I Have an Existing Irrigation System?
If you already have an in-ground watering system with a traditional timer attached, upgrading to a smart irrigation system is pretty simple. You simply remove your old controller and replace it with the smart one, connecting the zone wiring leads to the terminal posts inside the smart controller, just as they were in the old controller, leaving the remaining infrastructure in place. (Make sure the controller you purchase has enough zones to handle your infrastructure; controllers typically support either 8 or 16 zones.)
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Photograph: Chris Null
From there, you’ll use an app to configure your zones based on plant type, shade conditions, and soil type. Most apps will recommend watering durations for each zone based on this information, and you can fine-tune these durations as you go, zone by zone. For setups involving a garden hose, configuration is even easier. Smart sprinklers attach to the terminus of any standard hose and can be placed anywhere in your yard. Alternately, smart hose timers attach to the spigot; you then connect your own sprinkler (or, in some cases, drip irrigation) to the timer. Mobile app features will of course vary, but many are just as sophisticated as permanent smart sprinkler systems.
How I Test Smart Irrigation Systems
I’ve been testing smart irrigation products since 2017 in yards as large as 1.3 acres in both California and Texas. My current sprinkler system is a permanently plumbed solution that spans 11 zones and includes both in-ground sprinklers and drip irrigation. For hose-based solutions, I test by connecting to a standard hose spigot, typically in both lawn and flower bed environments.
Photograph: Chris Null
Rachio
I’ve tested over a dozen smart sprinkler controllers with my underground irrigation systems, and this Rachio controller is the one I use every day. To be sure, there’s nothing remarkable about the hardware, though it’s easy to connect zone wiring thanks to spring-loaded clips instead of screws, and the onboard controls cover just the basics.
The real magic is in Rachio’s app. Here, you define your zones based on vegetation type, nozzle/drip type, soil type, sun exposure level, and slope. If you want to get really wild, advanced options let you set everything from root depth to the amount of water depletion you wish to allow. Assign each zone a name and a photo, and they’re all presented in an intuitive grid, which you can use as a point-and-click interface for manual watering operations as needed.
Rachio’s scheduling can be fixed based on day or date, or dynamic, with adjustments automatically applied based on rolling weather conditions. The app’s logging system is copious, detailing every run’s timing and duration—for each zone and each day. It’s also easy to share access with my professional irrigation team, so they can periodically test zones for leaks or other problems without needing physical access to my garage, where the controller lives.
Irrigreen 3.0
Irrigreen 3.0 Starting at $2,089: Irrigreen isn’t just a controller. It’s a pricey, complete irrigation solution that requires fresh plumbing and an upgrade of all your sprinkler heads to Irrigreen’s conservationist “water painting” system. I wouldn’t rip out an existing system for it, but if you’re installing sprinklers from scratch, it’s worth a strong look.
Orbit B-Hyve XR Smart Indoor/Outdoor Sprinkler Timer for $128 (8-Zone) or $170 (16-Zone): Another outstanding app experience plus support for 5 GHz Wi-Fi makes this venerable irrigation system from Orbit a worthy contender.
Moen Smart Sprinkler Controller for $180 (8-Zone) or $235 (16-Zone): Pair this system with Moen’s wireless soil sensors to get even more accurate weather intelligence about your yard.
Yardian Pro Smart Sprinkler Controller for $140 (6-Zone): No-frills and better for smaller setups, this streamlined sprinkler controller supports Ethernet connections and features real-time leak monitoring.
Photograph: Christopher Null
Photograph: Christopher Null
Photograph: Christopher Null
OtO
This is the best product in a very small category, a pint-sized device (weighing just a pound and a half) that lets you water your lawn intelligently but without an in-ground irrigation system. The OtO connects to a standard garden hose—and that’s it. The secret sauce is a solar panel on top of the device that eliminates the need for a power cable.
OtO’s app lets you define the boundaries of your yard with a maplike interface in which you tap to drop points around the sprinkler until the area you want watered is fully outlined. From there, you can set up schedules to water that area as you see fit (with weather conditions taken into account automatically). The magic of a system like OtO is that the sprinkler only waters the area you define—no matter how oddly shaped the area is. That means you waste less water hitting driveways and decks than you would with traditional sprinkler systems.
OtO isn’t cheap, but it’s a lot less expensive than installing in-ground irrigation—and it’s an excellent solution for renters who don’t have the ability to dig up the yard for something more permanent.
Aiper IrriSense 2
Aiper IrriSense 2 for $400: The only other option in this market is almost as good as OtO, but the hardware is enormous in comparison and it lacks the solar panel, meaning you have to run an extra wire through the yard. It offers nearly identical watering quality, however.
Courtesy of Amazon
Rachio
This is a simple product in a simple category, designed to turn your garden hose on or off on a schedule. While the pint-sized product, powered by two AA batteries, has no physical controls beyond an on/off button, it’s once again the Rachio mobile app that does the heavy lifting, letting you leverage its crack weather intelligence system as you configure your hose-connected sprinkler, just as you would an in-ground system. Last year, I set up a unit and let it run for six months and never encountered any issues with the device—not even the need for a battery replacement.
The only caveat is that while the timer is battery-powered, it needs a tiny hub, permanently connected to a nearby electrical outlet, in order to bridge communication with your home network. Like the timer itself, the hub is a simple device, but it does require a little extra installation effort and a dedicated wall socket for it. The good news is that a single hub will support eight hose timers, so most homes can get away with purchasing additional timers sans the hub for $20 less.
Eve Aqua
Eve Aqua Smart Water Controller for $165: The Eve Aqua is larger, more expensive, and harder to install than the Rachio Smart Hose Timer, but it has one major thing going for it: Its Wi-Fi radio is built in, so you don’t need to install a separate bridge to use it. However, because of the extra power needed for the radio, you’ll likely run through batteries along the way a lot more quickly.
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