Wednesday, 1 April 2015

NID graduates create app-enabled smart pots for plants

For most plant lovers, leaving their potted plants unattended at home while they are travelling seems a sad story. To relieve plant growers of this dilemma, graduates of the National Institute of Design (NID) have developed an intelligent flower pot and an app that will help the plants water themselves.

Greenopia, an internet-enabled advanced smart gardening kit, that consists of one or multiple smart pots and a mobile application that helps a user monitor and take care of their plants remotely. The smart pot has sensors that detect the status of a plant- like whether it's receiving enough water and sunlight, or if soil conditions are optimum.

"We usually see that plants die when we come back from a trip. The smart pot has a button, which when pressed through the app, will squirt water in the required quantity. So, the user can water the plants even when he is not at home," said Mani H K, who has co-founded Greenopia with fellow NIDians Mayukhini Pande, Devyani Jain and Veethika Mishra.

The idea was born after the students tried to grow plants individually but failed. Launched last month, the product is targeted at urban residents who love to grow plants but are too busy to take care of them.

The smart kit comes with a smart pot that has a 1.5 litre capacity tank, an app and a seed kit.

"We are taking the initiative global with a crowdfunding campaign. We are backed by Rajan Anand, MD of Google India in crowdfunding," said Mayukhini, an NID graduate of 2011 who runs a design consultancy firm in Ahmedabad.

Recently, Paris-based technology company Parrot launched a smart flower pot that detects whether your plant has enough light and fertilizer and even waters it for you.

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