Photo: smartdroplet.com



With winter finally out the way, sprinklers are slowly making their way back on the front yards, backyards and gardens of households everywhere. Anyone who’s had to deal with sprinkler systems knows they can be cumbersome to install and use. They’re also wasteful, aimlessly spewing out water for inordinate periods of time, often on sidewalks and unsuspecting passersby.

There’s clearly some work to be done in this space and Steve Fernholz has made it his mission to smarten up the traditional sprinkler.

Based out of San Francisco’s Bay Area, Fernholz’s robotic sprinkler system Droplet works by intermittently shooting out bursts of water to specific spots on your lawn — targeting individual plants, shrubs and flowers. Through an accompanying smartphone app, users will be able to identify exactly where and how much water Droplet should spray on your garden. Droplet will also take soil data, plant species and weather conditions into account and determine exactly the right quantities of water to disperse onto plants.

Best of all, installing Droplet won’t require you to uproot your lawn. The sprinkler system simply hooks up to a garden hose and a regular power socket, allowing for easy setup.

What this all amounts to is a far more efficient and sustainable irrigation system that can reduce average sprinkler water consumption by up to 90 percent and save households an average of $265 a year.

Inspired by his mother, who would cleverly spray water across her lawn with her hose all while staying in one place, Droplet is set to revolutionize irrigation technologies.

Passionate gardeners won’t need to wait long to get their hands on Droplet as it will be available on Amazon.com in June 2014 for $299.99.

Fernholz has voiced interest in exporting the Droplet sprinkler system abroad to farms in the Global South where impoverished people could benefit from the technology.

To learn more on Droplet, check out the video below:

