What can a smart irrigation system do?
A smart irrigation system makes watering your garden easy. But how exactly does it work?
A garden's or irrigation area's water requirements depend on many factors. Important factors include temperature and sunlight intensity, soil structure, plant species and root depth, wind, and humidity. You can find more information on our Plants, Water and Soil page. In most cases, the most important water source is still natural rain rather than artificial irrigation. Garden water requirements can vary considerably. Even in midsummer, days with excess water from rainfall are often followed by days with moderate or very high water requirements.
A smart irrigation system can communicate over the internet and optimize water delivery based on measured parameters and internet control, thereby promoting the health of the soil and plants.
The most important capabilities of a smart irrigation system
- App control and remote access: A smart irrigation system should be accessible via a smartphone app, allowing users to monitor its status, change settings, and receive notifications no matter where they are.
- Customizable watering times: The system should support schedules that can be adjusted at any time to meet the individual needs of the garden and plants.
- Weather integration: A key feature of smart irrigation systems is taking weather forecasts into account when deciding when and how much to water. If rain is expected, irrigation is reduced or stopped altogether.
- Soil moisture sensors: Using sensors to measure soil moisture enables the system to determine exactly when the soil is dry and needs water. This prevents both overwatering and underwatering.
- Water volume control: It should offer the ability to control the amount of water precisely in order to avoid waste and protect the environment.
- Energy efficiency: To be smart, the devices need to be connected to one another, and constant communication consumes a lot of energy. Ideally, therefore, they should operate with solar charging and a long-lasting battery.
- Compatibility with smart home systems: A good smart irrigation system should be able to integrate with existing smart home systems so that it can work with other devices such as weather stations or voice assistants.
- Adaptability to different plant species and garden areas: Different plants and garden areas have different watering needs, which a smart system can adapt to.
How smart is MIYO?
The MIYO irrigation system (Cube series) in a garden is controlled by the MIYO Cube. It stores and processes all data locally. With the LoRaWAN system, MIYO's smart functions are provided by MIYO servers on the internet.
The Cube is connected to the internet and communicates with:
- the MIYO app on your smartphone
- the MIYO Cloud for storing garden status
- Weather systems
- Smart home systems
- with self-created programs via the open API
For optimal irrigation, the garden is divided into irrigation areas. Any number of irrigation windows can be created for each area throughout the week. If a Sensor is used, the target soil moisture range can be defined for the area.
On the garden side, the Cube is connected wirelessly to the valves and Sensors. It receives information from the Sensor about soil moisture, temperature, and sunlight intensity for the irrigation area. When irrigation is triggered based on the parameters or manually, the Cube opens the valves assigned to the irrigation area.
MIYO integration options
LOXONE
Details about MIYO & Loxone in the LoxWiki or directly from the creator:
https://miyoplugin.phantasoft.de/
Home Assistant
Details on setting up MIYO in Home Assistant can be found here: MIYO Home Assistant Plugin
openHAB
Details on setting up and configuring the MIYO openHAB Binding can be found here: MIYO openHAB Binding.
Homey
Details on integrating MIYO with Homey can be found here: MIYO Homey App.
IFTTT
Details on using MIYO with IFTTT can be found here: MIYO IFTTT Service.
What are the benefits of MIYO?
- A thriving garden: with MIYO, irrigation can be adapted to the needs of the soil and plants quickly and easily. This ensures that irrigation, a key factor in a thriving garden, is always optimized.
- Water savings: through its wide range of settings, integration of soil moisture measurements, and weather forecasts, MIYO can significantly reduce water consumption. During periods with frequent rainfall, savings exceed 50%.
- Evapotranspiration calculation: MIYO uses numerous factors, from precipitation to temperature, sunlight intensity, and wind, to calculate the garden's theoretical water requirements, which can be used as the basis for determining irrigation duration. You can find more information about evapotranspiration here.
- No battery consumption: energy for sensors and valves is provided through solar charging. Conventional valves, such as those from Gardena, use at least 3 AA batteries per irrigation season. MIYO requires 3 AAA rechargeable batteries that last for 5–10 years. Saving approximately 12 to 30 batteries per valve (!) over the devices' lifetime makes an important contribution to conserving resources and protecting the environment.
- Irrigation zones: with MIYO, the garden can be divided into any number of irrigation circuits, each of which can be individually adapted to the plants' needs. This ensures that plants with different water requirements are irrigated optimally while saving water.
What can MIYO not do?
Every garden is different. The differences begin with the soil and extend to the microclimate, slope, orientation, and plants. MIYO cannot make adjustments for these conditions, but it gives garden owners a practical tool to efficiently and sustainably address one of the main issues: water management.
Switch over and let your smart MIYO irrigation system do the work for you!
Do you want to connect your system to MIYO?
Here you will find the documentation for our API
Are you a system provider, business developer, or software developer?
Then contact us by email at support@miyo.garden or call for an interface description.