Leave it to tousled hair design wunderkind Yves Behar to take backyard gardening to new innovative levels—and turn smartphone-thumping thumbs green.
Last week, the Edyn Smart Garden System launched on Kickstarter. Founded by soil scientist Jason Aramburu and designed in conjunction with Behar and his design firm fuseproject, the system is the product of years of research on farming communities in Panama and Kenya. After working primarily with small farmers during the start of his sustainable fertilizer company, Aramburu couldn’t help but think technology and soil sensors could be at the core of the solution to challenges they faced—and help us all become more efficient growers and better conservationists. He teamed up with Behar in 2013 to create Edyn.
fuseproject's industrial design, digital user experience, and brand teams looked at many different possibilities in terms of aesthetics, storytelling and connectivity, and positioning in the garden.
"The thought was simple and profound: if one could see specifically what his or her plants need, then the relationship between gardener and garden becomes something profoundly intimate," says Behar. "In today’s busy world, the average person often doesn’t have time to invest in their garden, and is making educated guesses as to what their plants need. Our goal was to create with Jason’s sensory technology a seamless communication between nature and its caretaker, while designing something beautiful in the context of the garden.”
Edyn's garden sensor.
By measuring and quantifying environmental data gathered through its garden sensor, Edyn enables users to more efficiently manage resources like water, soil, and organic fertilizer by constantly monitoring its environment and learning exactly what your plants need. And seeing how it’s compatible with vegetable, fruit, herbal, decorative, and medicinal plants, even your backyard grow operation has the opportunity to benefit. With the addition of Edyn’s water valve, your garden can operate efficiently, delivering the correct amount of water without waste—or you drowning your succulents. Plus, it’s solar powered with a backup battery for foggy days, and Wi-Fi capabilities connect it to the cloud, so you can gather soil reports and get guidance on thousands of plant varieties via the Edyn app instead of paying attention in that morning meeting.
“Edyn was created with the belief that understanding our environment is the first step towards conserving it,” said Aramburu. “It represents our commitment to helping gardeners of all levels have the best success possible in not only growing plants but creating a thriving garden and being part of a community of like-minded growers. We’re using hardware and data to deliver actionable insights that’ll help those gardeners achieve their goals.”
The Edyn Garden Sensor and Water Valve is available to fund on Edyn’s Kickstarter campaign page. For the earliest backers, the Edyn garden sensor is up for pre-order starting at $99 and the Edyn garden sensor and water valve are both available for $159.
