Tired Of Wasting Water With That Dumb Sprinkler? Meet The Smart Sprinkler Controller

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It's summertime, which means millions of Americans like me are currently embroiled in a battle with the summer sun to keep our lawns green and healthy.

But while a green lawn is practically a birthright in America, droughts are becoming more frequent, which has caused local municipalities to call on us lawn keepers to be smarter with our water. In drought-plagued places like California, cities are handing out penalties for wasteful use and even rewarding cash those who convert their lawns.

Much of problem with wasteful watering is the simple fact that automated watering systems just aren't very smart. In fact, if you have one like the old system in my house, you could say it's even kinda dumb. This can be a problem because there are roughly 15 million or so underground watering systems like mine in the US, most of which have no ability to understand the current weather, monitor usage and control via an app.

One company that is looking to add more intelligence to lawn watering is Rachio, a Colorado based startup. Rachio makes the Iro Wi-Fi connected sprinkler controller, a device that can be used with most underground sprinkler systems and enables someone to control the watering of their lawn with a smartphone.

But what makes a device like the Rachio really interesting is the ability to react to real-time weather data specific to one's own geographic location to adapt its watering schedule.  I can't tell you how many times my watering system has gone off in the rain (I live in Seattle, after all) because it was simply programmed to do so.  And when it's really hot? Same amount of water as when it's raining, meaning all the grass might just die anyway.

Chris Klein, the CEO of Rachio, first started thinking about the idea of a smart sprinkler when he was walking his dog in the fall of 2012 and saw the wasteful behavior of many of the automated sprinkler systems in his neighborhood.

"Water is a very precious resource," Klein told me recently on the Smart Home Show podcast, "so seeing this system that had no notion of its environment, and no notion of season and weather controlling this water, it looked like it needed to be replaced."

Soon he and his cofounders had created a prototype and not long after that  had a product  ready for market. The Iro is now available through Home Depot .  It's smart app controllable, can monitor satellite weather data delivered via the cloud and allows you to view your usage history.

Rachio isn't the only company looking to create more intelligent sprinkler controllers. Companies like RainMachine have been shipping Wi-Fi connected irrigation controller since last year, and bigger players in irrigation are looking at connected solutions as well.

Will smart sprinkler controllers help on a big enough scale to help cities like LA with their problems? It couldn't hurt, since the EPA believes that 95% of current sprinkler controllers need to be replaced, it might not be long before some cities actually start handing out incentives to add some intelligence to your sprinklers.

Michael Wolf is a smart home analyst with NextMarket Insights. You can download a copy of his DIY smart home report executive summary and follow him on Twitter for other smart home musings.

Michael Wolf is a technology analyst, advisor and founder of NextMarket Insights (www.nextmarket.co). He is one of leading authorities on the connected home, and has ad...