Inviting lush lawns, beds bursting with blooms and greenery, leafy trees offering shade and solitude. Who wants to bring technology into the peace and beauty of the outdoors? The truth is, gardens and yards are hard work, and landscape maintenance leans heavily on resources that are anything but plentiful. Add in lighting, and outdoor spaces quickly become costly and complicated to design and keep up.

Enter the smart landscape, which promises to maintain your grounds more efficiently and effectively than you might, while preventing wasted water and providing simple ways to enhance aesthetics.

Water is the biggest challenge of any landscape. We spray roughly nine billion gallons on our yards every day, accounting for 30 percent or more of all residential water use in the U.S. Most of us drastically overwater because it’s hard to know exactly how much our lawns and plants need. While xeriscaping—planting drought-tolerant and water-efficient species—is an overall low-tech conservation approach, smart, weather-based sprinkler controllers can help take the guesswork out of irrigating. Easy to install, they’re like smart thermostats for the outdoors. They can program and adjust themselves based on calculations of weather and your particular plants and landscape. The EPA says replacing a standard sprinkler timer with a WaterSense-labeled, WiFi-connected smart controller can save a home 7,600 gallons of water a year.

They’re not perfect, however. “Our testing shows that some controllers do better under certain situations than others,” says Texas A&M professor Guy Fipps, who has spent a decade researching various models. “But for most homeowners, this is probably the best way to go.”

The frequent glitch Fipps and his research partner, Charles Swanson, found was in the reliability of their evapotranspiration rates, the determination of how fast the soil and plants are losing moisture and are in need of external replenishment. “The quality of weather data used to calculate evapotranspiration varies widely,” says Swanson. “We found that even if it rains a lot, some controllers will still irrigate frequently.” Selecting a controller that works with the most reliable source of weather data for your area is crucial, he says.

“The average U.S. home wastes about twenty-seven gallons a day due to undetected leaks in their water systems.”
–Gabriel Halimi, cofounder of Flo Technologies

While the internet allows connection to myriad weather sources, the most local, of course, is your own backyard, where you can generate your own data by installing a personal weather station. A Netatmo weather station—a wireless device that monitors rainfall, temperature, wind, and other climate variables—can talk to the Rachio smart sprinkler controller (as well as give your smartphone updates for your evening run). Another option, especially for yards where some areas dry faster than others, is a smart controller from Spruceor Gro, both of which have compatible wireless soil moisture sensors. “The sensors can work well,” says Fipps, “but may become expensive as you need one for every irrigation zone.” He also says sensors aren’t as effective if the topsoil is less than six inches deep, as is the case in most gardens.

Another way to prevent water waste is with a smart leak detector, such as Flo by Moen. This installs on the main water line and uses artificial intelligence to monitor water flow to your garden and your home, learning your water usage patterns and automatically shutting down the supply when there’s a significant leak or alerting you to a smaller one via an app. "The average U.S. home wastes roughly twenty-seven gallons a day due to undetected leaks in their water systems,” says Flo Technologies cofounder Gabriel Halimi. According to the EPA, an irrigation system with a leak the diameter of the thickness of a dime wastes about 6,300 gallons a month. A device like Flo can notify you of leaks as small as a drop per minute, making this technology worth the investment for some.

While watering may be the biggest landscape challenge, grass-cutting usually generates the most groans, not to mention the most noise and noxious fumes. For a true labor-saving advancement, a robotic lawn mower offers a more eco-friendly alternative to traditional machines. While limited in its range—the most powerful Husqvarna Automower 450x can handle just over an acre at a time—a robotic lawn mower is powered by a rechargeable battery and, like a robotic vacuum cleaner, can largely be left to manage itself. Capable of mowing quietly at night and navigating around flower beds, these mowers will mulch your lawn, so no need for bags. And like all smart products, they can be controlled by a smartphone app.

Smart lighting is particularly attuned to this type of remote control, especially outdoors. Color-changing lights, such as the Lily spotlight from Philips Hue, can go from softly accenting a home’s architecture and foliage to bathing a backyard party in a rainbow of colors with just a tap.

More practical applications of smart outdoor lighting include motion-activated floodlights with cameras built in to deter uninvited visitors and pathway pillars paired with motion sensors to illuminate walkways as you pass.

Perhaps the nicest part of a smart garden is how it all connects with you. With geo-fencing features enabled, as you pull into your driveway your robotic lawn mower will scurry back to its base, the sprinklers will shut down so as not to soak you, and your indoor and outdoor lights will turn on to welcome you home.