Smart gardens are quite a new thing, this last years we’ve seen a lot of new products come to the market, on the following post we’ll review some of the best and more complete smart gardens available on the market.
Today we present a review of Plantui, a little hydroponic smart garden that can grow successfully a lot of herbs!
The Plantui: A little automated smart garden
A desktop hydroponic smart garden
Designed by a Finish company Plantui is a little hydroponic garden that can be placed anywhere, it has an adjustable height, so it can be adapted to the plant size and growing state.
The lighting system:
On the head has a grow lighting system, made out of leds of a set of leds for each plant, every set of leds is composed of 3 leds of different wavelength, this offers a balanced spectrum composition for the plant grow needs. At the same time it keeps a balanced lighting color which feels pleasant.
The lighting control is simple, the photoperiod is made of 16 hours of day and 8 night hours. The lights can be turned off anytime by placing the hand on the top of the device, once off, they’ll turn on automatically after 8 hours. This is a nice solution to avoid having it on when you do not want it.
The watering system:
The watering system is simple, but effective. It’s an hydroponic system, the seeds are placed on the available slots and are supported by an inorganic substrate, rockwhool, which is a very common hydroponic substrate, this rockwhool capsules will hold the plant base during its life, the plant roots will grow outside of the initial capsule, trying to reaching more water.
The body of the device:
All the body it is made of a good quality plastic, the outside parts are painted with metallic looking paint, the company also sales styled and limited colored versions.
Conclusions:
Smart gardening and indoor automated domestic devices are still in its infancy, as the market matures this type of devices will become more common and affordable.
I do think that Plantui Smart Garden is a very nice product, well thought, nicely designed and finished. It certainly may feel a bit expensive specially taking into account that it’s all made of plastic and it’s limited capabilities for user interaction, but for sure, Plantui is capable enough to grow plants indoor by itself, and that, by itself, it is a big success.
We’ll finish with a nice timelapse of some letuces growing on a Plantui:
Frequent questions:
How does the watering system works?
The plants are watered several times a day by an electric pump placed in the middle, it runs for 30s during each watering.
Does it has any PH and nutritional water control?
No, the water PH and nutrients presence is not controlled, this is still a very expensive and complicated feature.
How are plants fertilized?
The Plantui comes with a nutrient solution that aims to fill all the needs of the plants they offer. An inorganic nutrient solution thought for the hydroponic systems is sold by the company.