Thursday, October 22, 2015

World Wisdom: RainMachine

Andrei Bulucea, the CTO of Green Electronics, makers of the RainMachine, recently did an interview with me to help promote the new product. Check out the water savings calculator to find out just how much your family can save.

What was the inspiration behind the RainMachine?
We started to design the RainMachine several years ago, at a time when Nest was un-existent and Home Automation was talked about but no products were available on the market. We simply thought we can make a better device (and we did!). What we did not know at the time is that we simply designed the best 'smart irrigation controller' because we decided early on to use an open models for our weather data sources (such as NOAA, etc) and software, which in turn, created a very strong user adoption.

Why is it such a strong need that homeowners may not even be aware of?
Aside the fact that controlling sprinklers with your Iphone is super-cool, water conservation is paramount. Most homeowners are not aware of the fact that water use can be 'synchronized'  with realtime weather changes -- when they understand how it works, they become evangelists of this technology. So in short, Conservation and Home Automation is what drives people to switch.

What other watering mistakes do people tend to make that waste water?
1. Watering at wrong hours. Best watering always happens early in the morning.
2. Overwatering during colder (spring and autumn) seasons. And of course, overwatering during rainy days!
3. Lack of 'cycle and soak' use (cycle and soak increases watering efficiency).

No comments:

Post a Comment