Thursday, May 8, 2014

NIWA - Smartphone Control of your Hydroponic Garden

I recently learned about a new product concept for an indoor hydroponic garden that looks like it has potential.


NIWA (www.getniwa.com) is a pretty slick looking 5 liter recirculating hydroponic system with lights and automation controlled from your smartphone.

Compared to the Aquafarm from Back to the Roots, this looks like a more serious food production system. The Aquafarm is a nice, compact system that can grow some herbs and is a good introduction to aquaponic gardening, the NIWA looks to be able to produce some serious food, and I suspect the price will reflect this increase in performance. NIWA claims to be able to grow tomatoes, strawberries, orchids, or medical plants.


I've been in contact with Aga, one of the founders of NIWA, and asked about integration with a fish tank for an aquaponic system. While they haven't yet worked with any aquaponic experts to determine what would need to be done to the system to integrate aquaponics, they will be offering a maker-kit on the kickstarter which will include the electronics and gear inside with instructions to build the system on your own. I can imagine this could be used to hack an aquaponic version.


Some of my favorite features:

Automatic nutrient and irrigation adjustment for different plants. You don't have to do additional research, just tell NIWA what you're growing, and the nutrients and irrigation cycles are adjusted to optimize growth. Or, if you want to experiment, you can manually adjust the settings.

Automatic heating, ventilation, humidity, and lighting control. NIWA claims to monitor climate. In the system and automatically adjusts for optimal growth. If there is enough light in the room, the lights will be off.  If the room isn't bright enough, NIWA will sense this and turn on the grow lights.

Cloud connectivity let's you monitor and adjust the system from anywhere with an internet connection.


NIWA is getting ready to launch their kickstarter campaign on Monday, May 12, 2014.

The kicstarter prices are not too bad.  I don't know if it'll fit into my budget, but I definitely want to try this thing out!



2 comments:

  1. Niwa is the zenith of two years of innovative work, the aftereffect of numerous cycles, trials, and models. It`s is a mixture of hardware and software cooperating to take away the bother of cultivating as you know it. Niwa makes the ideal nature, waters and sustains your plants and permits you to control everything from your smartphone.
    Have a nice day.
    Mike.
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