A Smart Lawn Sprinkler System?

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm about to install a sprinkler system for my lawn. There are lots of timers and computers out there to automate the watering of your lawn. However, before I go out and buy something, I wanted to know if there are any interesting open source projects for watering lawns. I've heard about smart sprinklers that get weather from the internet/satellite and water accordingly. What have other Slashdot readers done?"

Comments

Lawn? I don't need no steenking lawn.

[nathanh]

I'm about to install a sprinkler system for my lawn. There are lots of timers and computers out there to automate the watering of your lawn. However, before I go out and buy something, I wanted to know if there are any interesting open source projects for watering lawns. I've heard about smart sprinklers that get weather from the internet/satellite and water accordingly. What have other Slashdot readers done?

Ask yourself if you really want a lawn. I suspect most people don't but they've never stopped and considered the alternatives. Consider these problems with lawns...

• Incredibly high maintenance. You'll be mowing that lawn every weekend during summer, removing patches of crabgrass, reseeding the dead spots, fertilising twice a year, etc.
• High water usage. Not only does a lawn have a large surface area but it also provides very little protection for the soil. You're the number one contributor to ground salination and rising water tables when you have a lawn.
• Usefulness? Lawn really isn't that useful. It isn't pretty. It doesn't shade the house, or hide your ugly brick walls from the street. You can't sit outside on the grass without looking silly. Some people claim they have grass so their kids can run around on it, but there are sports ovals for that. Why do you want a private oval in your backyard?

The silliest thing about grass is that it's an artificially stunted plant. The grass wants to grow long but by mowing it you are cropping it to the roots. The grass is permanently kept in the juvenille state. Why bother?

So what did I do? I got rid of my grass. A few mounds of dirt to give the garden a bit of privacy. Woodchip on top to shade the soil and blanket the roots. I put in some native bushes, flowers and trees. Built a nice path through the garden. Then I built a paved area where I can put some chairs and a small table. Now I can sit in my garden and enjoy the beautiful scenery. I don't have to see the neighbour's laundry hanging on their washing line. I also don't have to water it more than once a week because of the woodchip. Native birds, lizards and insects love my garden; it's a healthy thriving ecosystem. Meanwhile my neighbours waste 3 hours of every weekend mowing their ugly lifeless lawns.

Just get a good timer

[linuxwrangler]

"Smart" means getting tried and true equipment designed for the purpose. A good timer will do everything you need reliably and with minimum power draw. Just be sure to get a timer with non-volatile memory and a backup battery for the clock.

Any decent timer will allow you to add a rain sensor that will turn off the sprinklers if it rains. Most rain sensors consist of pieces of material that absorb water and swell up causing them to push a switch. The sprinklers won't resume till the sensor dries out and the amount of moisture needed to stop the sprinklers is adjustable. Butt simple and reliable.

If you want to get way fancy then you can get a system that incorporates soil moisture sensors.

Depending on your situation you may want to check out subsurface drip irrigation for the lawn. Subsurface drip is generally more expensive but really excels 1) in very hot areas, 2) for oddly shaped or narrow areas that don't work well with sprinklers, 3) where it is often windy and 4) on steep slopes.

MisterHouse ... It Knows Kung Fu

[2TecTom]

"Code has been written for DSC Alarm pannels, Stargate LCD displays, Slinke IR send/receive, Marrick X10, RCI X10 sprinklers, Xantech preamps, ISDN modems, voice modems, ComPool and Aqualink pool equipment"

http://www.misterhouse.net/

There's several perl sprinkler scripts ...

I use X10 and Indigo

[Frogbeater]

I had tried X-10 years ago and it seemed pretty lame, but I recently installed the latest hardware on my home server and bought a Rain8 and a rain sensor and it works great.
The best part is that the Indigo software for OSX that drives the X10 has an awesome community who have come up with plenty of ways to do what you're asking about.

$20 solution for a $1 problem

[a9db0]

Back in the early days of the space program, NASA spent tens of thousands of dollars on research to develop a pen that would write in zero gravity. The Russians used a five cent pencil.

Use a timer. A basic four or six zone timer with battery backup will be far more cost effective and reliable than a computerized and connected solution. I had one of the fancy electronic timers for a while. After having it knocked out by lightning a couple of times (remember, these are connected to low voltage lines running underground across your property) I got a better solution.

I bought an inexpensive 6 zone timer with built in battery backup that I could set up in acordance with local watering restrictions that would handle my needs. It even had the ability to hook in a rain sensor to interrupt the cycle if it had been raining recently. It worked great. (May still be, I sold the house.)

Re:$20 solution for a $1 problem

[Judg3]

Back in the early days of the space program, NASA spent tens of thousands of dollars on research to develop a pen that would write in zero gravity. The Russians used a five cent pencil.

No, no they didn't.