Aeon Matrix launched the unique Yardian in 2017 with an odd proposition: Combine a wise sprinkler controller with a house safety digicam. While the primary Yardian was relative nicely acquired, the brand new Yardian Pro simplifies issues by ditching the safety angle and specializing in irrigation. It’s a succesful—if moderately complicated—good sprinkler system.
Let’s begin with the {hardware}. This 6 x 6-inch flat-white field is unobtrusive and trendy in design, with a slim bar of LEDs indicating zone exercise throughout the center. It’s one of some sprinkler units that might look OK mounted inside your private home. (Also price noting: While the unit is rated for efficiency in temperatures from -22 levels Fahrenheit to 140 levels F, it’s not waterproof and might’t be used outdoors as a result of Yardian doesn’t supply an exterior housing whilst an choice.) We reviewed the 12-zone mannequin ($200); an 8-zone model ($130) is also available, in case you have a smaller irrigation system.
Wiring is straightforward because of spring clips that simply connect with the leads, although a few of the inside zone clips will be laborious to totally depress with out a screwdriver or a pointy fingernail. Yardian additionally features a sheet of stickers that allow you to label your zone wires, which is useful. It’s accessible in 8- and 12-zone configurations, each of which embody two elective sensor inputs for rainfall and water-flow measurement.
This evaluation is a part of TechHive’s protection of the best smart sprinkler controllers, the place you’ll discover opinions of competing merchandise, plus a purchaser’s information to the options you must take into account when searching for one of these product.
The Wi-Fi within the Yardian Pro is claimed to be up to date because the earlier mannequin, now providing “4x more powerful” wi-fi capabilities; observe, nonetheless, that it might be part of solely 2.4GHz networks. An ethernet port can also be accessible if you wish to hardwire the unit to your router, as is a USB port, if you wish to bypass the LAN altogether and join on to a mobile information community with a dongle.
We all hate wall warts, however having the ability provide consistent with the wire means its weight may very well be left dangling from the Yardian Pro until you mount it comparatively low on the wall.
My solely grievance in regards to the {hardware} is that moderately than utilizing a transformer that attaches to the wall, Yardian depends on an influence adapter that resides in the midst of {the electrical} cable (just like a typical laptop computer energy adapter). Depending on the place your machine is mounted, this may imply the adapter will dangle suspended within the air, dangling from the Yardian unsupported.
After {hardware} set up, you flip to the Yardian app, which requires registration and e-mail affirmation earlier than you will get going. Setup requires you to enter an gear ID that’s printed close to the wire terminals to pair the machine to your account. If you’re an iPhone consumer, the app then directs you to iOS Home and a HomeEquipment tag scan to finish the registration course of. I didn’t encounter any hassle with any of those steps, although you’ll need to attend a couple of minutes for every thing to course of.
Yardian can import water restriction guidelines out of your native water district.
For some purpose, most good sprinkler apps are surprisingly unintuitive, and Yardian’s is not any exception. Plan to spend an hour or so over a number of days working by the system and understanding its quirks, of which there are various. For instance, if you wish to run an on-demand watering session, you’ll discover these choices beneath the Control tab. That’s totally different from “manual” management, although, which is definitely one of many three choices you should use for operating scheduled applications. “Manual” management is a straightforward timer system, whereas “conditional” management helps you to create a schedule based mostly on time and date in addition to temperature thresholds.
Finally, there’s “smart” scheduling, which takes into consideration plant and soil varieties, solar publicity, slope, and different variables to find out the optimum schedule in your yard. These varieties of clever scheduling methods will be hit or miss, however I used to be pleasantly shocked that Yardian got here up with very smart schedule for my yard after I took the time to configure the required settings (eight minutes of water per day, adjusted for the season). By default, Yardian adjusts complete circulate every month, from 100 % in summer time to 20 % within the winter months, and it might join along with your native water firm to robotically account for any restrictions on watering days and instances.
The downside is that figuring all of this out entails a ton of trial and error. None of it’s intuitive, and even after a number of days of working with the machine I discovered myself punching random tabs and buttons to seek out the settings and capabilities I wanted. The {hardware} additionally consists of two bodily buttons that help you manually run watering applications; however these aren’t intuitive both, so preserve the thick handbook useful. The best strategy to run a handbook watering program is definitely to make use of the iOS Home app—as a result of that’s all that Home can actually do. You can even use Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to manually begin and cease zones by voice, or inquire as to when the subsequent run will happen.
Another small grievance is that the Yardian app inexplicably doesn’t include an choice to ship push notifications when watering runs start and finish, solely alerting you in case your schedule has been skipped. The app does helps you to select which instances of day are acceptable to run, however these settings should be configured individually for every day of the week and might’t be utilized universally, which makes for a slog. These look like careless oversights that ought to have been remedied years in the past—together with some normal usability enhancements.
At this level, Rachio is the clear chief within the good sprinkler house, and whereas the Yardian Pro doesn’t rise to the extent of difficult it, it does a minimum of come at a barely higher worth than the Rachio 3, although the lower-end Rachio 3e continues to be cheaper than the Yardian Pro. That stated, costs are at all times in flux, and the Yardian Pro a minimum of works nicely sufficient and has a strong sufficient characteristic set to benefit consideration.