Smart connected irrigation system

  • 6 Replies
  • 5898 Views
*

Jaken

  • Newbie
Smart connected irrigation system
« on: September 17, 2019, 10:35:51 PM »
I have a summerhouse I'm Croatia 3000 km from where I live, Sweden.

Bought the house in Croatia 2 years ago and the garden was in a terrible condition.

Started the first year with cutting down and digging up dead trees and removing weed. And planted some palm trees and some Nerium.

This year I installed 200 meter drip irrigation. A standard water timer was not interesting for me since I wanted to be able to adjust schedule and the amount of water and put it on pause in rainy days and turn it of when the autumn rains begins. All of this by remote... 3000 km away.

So some smart Internet connected timer was needed.

First problem... Internet... 4g connection was quickly eliminated since it was not stable.
 Connected the house to broadband (fixed Internet) and started looking for smart connected irrigation timers.

There are a few different options. I purchased an Hoselock Cloud system on eBay and installed it. It was compared to other brands cheaper. About 100 euro.

Installed it, connected it to my WiFi and downloaded the app. Success, I now could control my irrigation from anywhere in the world.

But one thing was bothering me, could it be trusted?  How do I know that the valve in the device turns off just because the app says it is turned of?

The solution, a cheap WiFi connected outdoor surveillance camera that had its focus on the outlet of a part of the dripline. Now I could verify in the camera that it was watering when the app said so and turned of when it was supposed to.

Great! Everything was working fine and I went home to Sweden and everything worked excellent. For a while... Then my app somehow lost connection to the irrigation timer. Gaaaa what to do!!!? Fortunately I could observe in the  camera that my water schedule was watering as planed. So now I'll let it water until rain starts and then ask some neighbour to turn the water supply off.

Reading customer reviews of the Hoselock timer has made me purchase another brand, Gardena Smart System, same concept but much more expensive. The plan is to install it next year and hopefully it will work better.

So my question is if someone else is using a connected smart irrigation system and can share some experience?
Summerhouse with garden in Croatia, Dubrovnik.
Permanent home in Sweden 3000 km from summerhouse...

*

Jaken

  • Newbie
Re: Smart connected irrigation system
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2019, 10:42:39 PM »
A pic of the Hozelock smart timer.
Summerhouse with garden in Croatia, Dubrovnik.
Permanent home in Sweden 3000 km from summerhouse...

*

Fleur Pavlidis

  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
Re: Smart connected irrigation system
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2019, 04:14:02 PM »
What are the cables/pipes coming out of the back of the timer and going into the ground doing?
MGS member, Greece. I garden in Attica, Greece and Mt Goulinas (450m) Central Greece

*

Jaken

  • Newbie
Re: Smart connected irrigation system
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2019, 05:05:29 PM »
Those are water pipes to three different drip lines. Two of them goes through a bigger pipe in the concrete and comes up in the other end of the garden.
Summerhouse with garden in Croatia, Dubrovnik.
Permanent home in Sweden 3000 km from summerhouse...

Caroline

  • Full Member
Re: Smart connected irrigation system
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2019, 10:30:23 PM »
Trevor Nottle in "Gardens of the Sun" has written a very funny and instructive account of setting up an irrigation system.
I am establishing a garden on Waiheke Island, 35 minutes out of Auckland. The site is windy, the clay soil dries out quickly in summer and is like plasticine in winter, but it is still very rewarding. Water is an issue, as we depend on tanks. I'm looking forward to sharing ideas. Caroline

*

Jaken

  • Newbie
Re: Smart connected irrigation system
« Reply #5 on: September 19, 2019, 05:00:21 PM »
Thank you.

I'm primarily looking for experience in seting up an irrigation system that has online connection so that it can be controlled from anywhere in the world.

Since the book your referring to had publishing date 1996 I'm assuming it doesn't address that aspect of irrigating.

Anyone else that has tried smart connected irrigation?
Summerhouse with garden in Croatia, Dubrovnik.
Permanent home in Sweden 3000 km from summerhouse...

*

MikeHardman

  • Hero Member
    • www.mikehardman.com
Re: Smart connected irrigation system
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2020, 10:04:14 PM »
FYI, I started a new topic on a similar subject -
http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=2808.0
Mike
Geologist by Uni training, IT consultant, Referee for Viola for Botanical Society of the British Isles, commissioned author and photographer on Viola for RHS (Enc. of Perennials, The Garden, The Plantsman).
I garden near Polis, Cyprus, 100m alt., on marl, but have gardened mainly in S.England