I'm sure many of you watered the lawn/garden and immediately after you were done with the job, the rain came and did the same thing all over again. These events cause costly water wastes and also certain plants to die due to excessive watering. Rain Bird comes with the solution to this problem, with their new advanced irrigation controller ESP-SMT. This gadget is equipped with a weather sensor, which will be used in order to control the watering process and irrigation schedules.

“The technology found in these new products will change the way residential landscapes are watered by allowing homeowners to tie the operation of their sprinkler system directly to the needs of the landscape on a real-time basis,” said Dave Johnson, Rain Bird’s director of corporate marketing. “As the weather conditions change, the sprinkler system will reflect those changes by tailoring watering accordingly. No longer does the homeowner need to worry about whether or not their lawn and garden is getting too much or too little water. The result is less water wasted, lower water bills and a healthier and heartier landscape.”

The weather-based irrigation controller from Rain Bird has wireless rain and freeze sensors and soil moisture sensor so that it determines the proper amount of water needed by the landscape it is being used in. The weather information is a bonus, since the system updates itself in real time and automatically reschedules or readjusts the watering conditions. The producers even say that it can lead to up to 70% less water usage in residential lawns or gardens.

The ESP-SMT can be mounted on an exterior wall, garage door, etc. Users can then connect their sprinkler system to it and afterwards the advanced irrigation controller does all the work for you, measuring the soil's condition, gathering present and historical weather information about that location and sensing whenever rain is approaching, thus stopping the watering process whenever it is not needed. It has a MSRP of $450 on the company's web shop.


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