Living in California means being acutely aware of the quantity of water my family consumes, so I don’t have an enormous thirsty garden that requires an in-ground sprinkler system. But I do have planted flowerbeds throughout the inspiration of my residence, and I’ve vast drought-tolerant gardens bordering my driveway and varied walkways. I irrigate these utilizing a water-efficient drip system linked to spigots on three sides of my home, and because of Orbit’s B-hyve Smart Hose Watering Timer, I by no means waste a drop.

If you’ve ever used a hose timer, you understand how irritating they’re to program. Most don’t have a show for visible suggestions, they depend on crude buttons that it’s worthwhile to press in sequences like Morse code, or dials with hard-to-read labels that you simply spin to set the times and instances you need the spigot to open. None of them have any intelligence onboard that tells them to skip a watering cycle if it’s raining or about to. I’ve seen a number of that hook up with elective probes that measure the soil’s moisture content material, however good luck discovering these equipment on the retailer. And the one manner you’ll know when the batteries powering them have died is while you discover your crops wilting.

This overview is a part of TechHive’s protection of the best smart sprinkler controllers, the place you’ll discover evaluations of competing merchandise, plus a purchaser’s information to the options you must contemplate when purchasing.

Orbit’s machine, powered by two AA batteries, doesn’t have a single button, since you program it along with your smartphone. The timer is outfitted with a Bluetooth 4.2 radio which you can hook up with straight along with your smartphone, however you can too purchase a package that features a Wi-Fi bridge that connects to your 2.4GHz residence community (the package is what’s reviewed right here). That bridge plugs into an AC outlet, so that you by no means want to fret about it operating out of juice, and it will probably management a number of timers, monitor their batteries, and warn you after they’re low (the timers even have LED indicators that report their standing).

The Bluetooth radios within the timers and within the bridge are surprisingly sturdy. One of the three I’ve deployed is on the reverse facet of my home, about 150 toes from the bridge with a number of partitions in between, however the timers are energy hungry. I’ve wanted at the least two units of batteries every watering season (I take them off the spigots within the winter, so that they don’t freeze—and sure, the app will warn you of freeze situations, too).

Programming the B-hyve

Programming the system with a smartphone app is exceedingly easy: You can specify that watering ought to happen on weekdays, even or odd days, or on an interval (e.g., each three days). What’s extra, you’ll be able to create multiple program for every timer. You would possibly need to create one for the spring and a second that waters extra continuously throughout the summer season. The app’s “smart watering” function will take a wealth of particulars about your landscaping under consideration: The sort of soil, the crops you’re watering, whether or not the backyard is primarily within the solar or within the shade, the slope of the world the place  you’ve deployed your sprinklers, and extra.

Michael Brown / IDG

Since the system is linked to the web by way of your Wi-Fi community (supplied you additionally buy the bridge), it displays native climate information primarily based in your tackle, and you may allow a “smart watering” function that can stop the valve from opening if it’s raining or it’s about to. The B-hyve will even delay turning in your water if windy situations exist, so the water popping out of your sprinkler doesn’t simply dissipate into the air. This wouldn’t essentially apply to a drip system, nonetheless, and when you can point out what sort of irrigation system is connected to the top of the hose, I take advantage of a combination of drip emitters for particular person shrubs and micro sprayers for floor covers.

Michael Brown / IDG

You can program the app to ship you push notifications when a rain or wind delay has began, when watering is full, if temperatures are anticipated to drop to freezing, when there’s a timer fault, and if the machine has been turned off or if its batteries have been depleted. The app additionally maintains a historical past of watering occasions for every zone. It doesn’t report how lengthy the occasions final, but it surely does present what time watering began and a special a part of the app will log what number of gallons of water have been disbursed (primarily based on a sensor within the unit).

Orbit additionally has an Alexa ability, so you need to use voice instructions to start out or cease watering, set a guide rain delay, and alter your timer mode.