Have you heard of a smart sprinkler controller? These days, the only thing you can do to go along with pace and change is by innovating.
Nurturing a garden at home involves cumbersome tasks like weeding and watering. The latter needs to be timed right to keep your plants alive and thriving. You have to know when you have to increase the frequency, or when to do it less often. And if you are particularly a busy person running an office or household, surely there will be days that it is hard to keep up with the ever-changing watering schedule.
Meanwhile, a farm – mini or a full-sized one, also needs an extra amount of tending and attention, including watering schedules. If you are growing different crops, each variety may need different attention, schedule, and care from you. It would be challenging to remember and attend to different care tasks – watering included, particularly if we are talking about hectares of land full of different crops with different needs.
Gladly, technology found its way to addressing these challenges with the help of a smart sprinkler controller. This allows you to set watering schedules that your sprinkler control system will follow automatically without your intervention.
Extra smart features like automatic weather situation detection can help you decide if it is time to water now or give it a rest. A sprinkler system controller can detect the presence of rain or even make accurate predictions of the weather based on available data it also can collect.
Here at Top Best Reviewss, we want you to make the most out of this helpful innovation for garden or farm owners like you. Thus, we narrowed your options to present you with our 3 most recommended smart sprinkler controller options available on Amazon today.
Best Smart Sprinkler Controller for Irrigation or Garden Maintenance – (Comparison)
| Name | Key Feature | |
| Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller – (Editor’s Choice) | Automatically stops watering when detects saturation in the land, if it is forecast to rain, etc. | Check Price |
| NxEco Smart Irrigation Sprinkler Controller HWN12-200 | You can choose between 8, 12, and 36-zone controller variations | Check Price |
| RainMachine Touch HD-12, Cloud Independent Smart Wi-Fi Irrigation Controller | Data are also stored via Cloud so it still works without Wi-Fi | Check Price |
Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller – Editor’s Choice
This smart sprinkler controller allows you to customize the watering schedule of your crops or plants according to their location in your farm and garden, as well as their needs. It does this by designating parts of your area into zones. With this sprinkler control box, you can now set the watering schedule of each zone, which may be different from the rest.
The Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller comes in different models, depending on how many zones you’d like to designate your garden or farm to. You can also choose to bundle it with accessories like connectors, sprinkler wires, or a Wi-Fi range extender to lengthen the coverage. You can opt for the 8-zone or 16-zone model. All models work with Alexa for seamless integration with your smart home system and control it using voice.
Automating your garden or farm’s watering schedule can save you both time and money in the long run. It also keeps you from forgetting schedules or still does the task even you are not home.
This smart sprinkler controller is teeming with smart features, including intelligent data collection technology. The Weather Intelligence Plus is a monitoring feature that enables your smart irrigation controller to monitor the weather in your area and provide accurate predictions. It also tandems with the data from national weather stations, satellite data, personal weather data, and radar data to recommend the best watering dates to skip based on season, weather, wind, and saturation shifts.
Meanwhile, the Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller also makes an effective garden water timer. Timing the intervals between waterings ensure that the water is absorbed properly by the soil, with less of it getting evaporated.
This smart sprinkler controller offers customized and tailored watering schedules and settings to help you make informed decisions about your lawn, garden, or farm care. Automation features allow you to save on time that you can instead allot on other important tasks.
Pros
- Customizable watering schedules per zone (choose between the 8 and 16-zone models)
- Data-based watering schedule suggestions
- Automatically stops watering when detects saturation in the land, if it is forecast to rain, etc.
- Connects with popular smart home systems like Alexa, Google Assistant, Smart Things, Apple HomeKit, and IFTTT
- Uses Wi-Fi connectivity
Cons
- Needs a Wi-Fi extender to support wider coverage areas
Conclusion
The Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller is a reliable partner that can help you with the cumbersome task of keeping your lawn or farm’s watering schedule consistent. It offers a host of smart features that are useful to keep your lawn or farm thriving, as well as in saving you time and money.
NxEco Smart Irrigation Sprinkler Controller HWN12-200
If you need a reliable partner that can assist you with bigger areas to cover, this is the smart sprinkler controller for you.
This 36-zone irrigation control allows you to create sections in your lawn or farm by grouping areas within the same location or crops within the same watering requirements and provide each with customizable watering schedules. Meanwhile, you can also choose from the 8-zone and 12-zone variations.
You can set the water sprinkler timer to start watering the zones at the best time. This way, you save time on doing the task itself and in doing it consistently.
In the same way, you can also set intervals in between waterings depending on the needs of your crops. But, if you don’t know what schedules that are best to follow, you can just set it to smart function. This feature allows your smart sprinkler controller to follow the data from the local and national weather forecast, as well as its own monitoring system, to automatically adjust the watering schedule fit for your zones.
The NxEco Smart Irrigation Sprinkler Controller HWN12-200 can also connect with your smart home systems like Alexa and Google Assistant. This way, you centralize your tasks with a hub you are already familiar with operating.
This wifi sprinkler controller can also be controlled via your smartphone. With a mobile app, you can adjust schedules, set timers, activate/deactivate automatic features, and monitor the weather and other statistical data it reads.
Meanwhile, you will never know when wireless connectivity will fail you. You are always welcome to adjust the settings manually since all the controls can be found on the equipment itself. Also, you can share access with your trusted gardener or farm keeper without giving your own password.
Pros
- You can choose between 8, 12, and 36-zone controller variations
- Can be controlled via a smart assistant, mobile app, and manually
- Can do smart or manual sprinkler settings
- Self-studies claim that users can save up to 50% water on lawns
Cons
- Manual controls aren’t intuitive for some users
Conclusion
The NxEco Smart Irrigation Sprinkler Controller HWN12-200 can provide you with the flexibility and convenience of taking care of the watering schedules of your lawn or farm. The 36-zone variation is a nice addition to the selection as it expands your coverage.
RainMachine Touch HD-12, Cloud Independent Smart Wi-Fi Irrigation Controller
This wifi irrigation controller boasts smart features and functionality. It builds its integrity in offering schedule suggestions by using different data sets – from its own monitoring and credible weather information sources like the Wunderground Personal Weather Station, Metno, Forecast.io, NetAtmo, or NOAA.GOV. This allows it to gather and use only precise, reliable, and real-time information.
This smart sprinkler controller offers 12 and 16-zone variations, allowing you to have an option to section your garden, lawn, or farm and set each with customized watering schedules. You can also use your smartphone and a free downloadable mobile app (compatible with both Android and iOS devices) to control or adjust your sprinkler timer or irrigation timer. It comes with a detailed, dashboard-like control interface that also shows the stats it gathers from various credible sources.
Switching your phone to landscape orientation allows you to view more data, like your daily, weekly, monthly, and annual stats that come in beautiful graphs.
The RainMachine Touch HD-12, Cloud Independent Smart Wi-Fi Irrigation Controller can also integrate into your smart home system, including the popular ones like Alexa, Google Home, Smart Things, Nest, and WINK. Aside from smart hubs and your mobile phone, you can also access and control your smart sprinkler controller via a web browser.
Forgot to bring your mobile device? You can also adjust settings, check weather stats, or customize your watering schedules on the device itself. You can set the water hose timer via its LCD touchscreen interface. It is capacitive and splashproof, and also viewable even from 20 feet away because of its white illuminated screen.
This smart garden hose timer is awarded a Water Sense Certification for its performance. The same is also a symbol for its efficiency in helping you achieve savings in water consumption, reaching up to 80% monthly.
Pros
- Can be controlled via multiple devices (smartphone, tablet, laptop/computer via a web browser, and on the device itself)
- Offers 12 and 16 zone smart sprinkler controller variations
- Data are also stored via Cloud so it still works without Wi-Fi
- Integrates with your smart home system
Cons
- Does not support Apple HomeKit
Conclusion
The RainMachine Touch HD-12, Cloud Independent Smart Wi-Fi Irrigation Controller provides you with convenience in terms of access. The Cloud feature is also a nice add-on. This smart sprinkler controller works effectively as it promises, too.
Final Verdict
A smart sprinkler brings tremendous benefits for lawn, garden, and farm owners. The savings you can get from having one can even pay for itself!
Judging each model on this list based on convenience, ease of use, number of smart features, sensors utilized, precise stats monitoring, and reliability, the best sprinkler controller is the Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller.
The Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller is equipped with powerful sensors that allow it to make informed decisions about when to skip watering or adjust its frequency depending on real-time data aside from local and national weather data.