Winter in the southern US is coming to a close, so it’s almost time to break out the the sprinklers as warm weather arrives. Meross has been steadily expanding its lineup of HomeKit-compatible products, and its latest addition brings another option for smart outdoor watering to HomeKit.
HomeKit Weekly is a series focused on smart home accessories, automation tips and tricks, and everything to do with Apple’s smart home framework.
The Meross Smart Sprinkler Timer is a WiFi-enabled outdoor watering controller designed for garden irrigation, drip systems, and more. It offers full HomeKit integration, allowing users to control watering schedules via the Home app, Siri, or automation routines based on time or weather.
One of the benefits of a product that’s an accessory to a non-smart sprinkler setup is flexibility in the future. Some of the cool features include:
- Auto skip based on hyper-local smart weather adjustments
- Water usage tracking (inside the Meross app)
- Auto shut-off feature to prevent overwatering or flooding. It also shuts off automatically if the batteries are depleted.
- Set schedules in HomeKit or Meross app, ensuring plants and lawns get watered even when you’re away from the house
- Watering schedules run even if the devices lose an internet or Wi-Fi connection, though the weather-based adjustments require an active connection.
You’ll install it at the faucet, and the hose so all of the water flows through it.
Differences between Meross Smart Sprinkler and Eve Aqua
The biggest competitor for Meross is Eve with the Eve Aqua. Both products will work well with HomeKit, but some key differences exist between the products. Eve Aqua uses Thread for low-power, direct connectivity, resulting in faster response times in the Home app.
On the other hand, Meross relies on Wi-Fi and a hub, but it supports up to 24 timers, making it a better option for larger or more complex watering setups. While Eve Aqua benefits from a hub-free design, Meross des adds water usage tracking and hyper-local weather-based watering skips, two features missing from Eve Aqua that help optimize watering.
Overall, both products are great, though.
Use cases with HomeKit
With HomeKit automations, you can set up the Meross Smart Sprinkler to come up at sunrise for optimal water and run for a set amount of time. You could also pair it with a HomeKit weather station to avoid watering when it rains. If you want to have some fun, you could leverage an outdoor motion sensor to scare away squirrels from your garden when motion is detected.
Wrap up
For options to retrofit your sprinkler setup to HomeKit, Eve Aqua has been the only option for many years, so it’s great to see Meross release a new product. Eve’s Thread support is fantastic, but Meross also comes in at a much lower price point.
You can buy the new Meross Smart Sprinkler on Amazon or directly from Meross.
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