How Smart is Your Soil?
Ah, technology. Sometimes new apps and tech advances make our lives much more stressful. But other times technology actually improves a facet of our lives. Take this example: Soil IQ.
Soil IQ was developed by Jason Aramburu and Luke Iseman in San Francisco, Calif., with the help of Yves Behar and fuseproject. Soil IQ melds the convenience of a smartphone soil app and the advanced tech of a probe that can stream soil fertility.
The company’s mission is simple: The founders wanted to help all gardeners grow food more sustainably. Aramburu, Soil IQ’s CEO, stressed that the majority of the food in the country is made on factory farms, which aren’t good at producing healthy food.
Soil IQ has a built-in wireless soil sensor that can help gardeners with small farms, or gardens, grow fruits and vegetables. The probe is powered by a solar panel and can run indefinitely. The estimated price tag for Soil IQ is $49.
The company’s founders also are working with Orange Telecom to get the probes to farmers in East Africa. And according to the Tech Crunch article, “Soil IQ Makes a Smart Probe for Your Garden,” Aramburu had previously started an organization called re:char. It was at that organization that he worked with more than 1,300 Kenyan farmers to help increase their yields.
Here are Soil IQ’s specs:
- The probe tracks and streams soil nutrient content, pH, temperature, moisture, and light data.
- It has an analytics platform that makes recommendations to home gardeners about how to optimize seed selection, fertilization and watering.
- It works with soil-based or hydroponics gardens, and with food, or medicinal crops.
- It can send SMS, or Twitter alerts when plants need attention.
Are you excited to see this product launch? I know I am.
Take a look at a few other articles we’ve wrote over the last few years about mind-boggling gardening technology:
3 Tech Gadgets that Help Your Plants Thrive
Gardening in Space: Local Food for Astronauts?
3 Radical Ways to Grow Veggies Indoors
