Eve Aqua gives Siri control of your garden hose
This new HomeKit compatible smart sprinkler will work with an ordinary garden hose.
Siri will soon be able to water your flowers.
The Elgato Eve Aqua is a Bluetooth enabled smart sprinkler. Attach it to your exterior faucet, and you'll gain app control over your ordinary garden hose and oscillator. Better yet, it works with Apple's smart home platform HomeKit , so you'll be able to turn on your sprinkler with a voice command to Siri -- Apple's digital assistant.
First announced at CES, the Aqua can be preordered for $100 starting Tuesday. It'll be widely available on June 25. You can buy the Aqua overseas as well for £90 in the UK and AU$179 in Australia.
Smarter watering
Elgato's been making HomeKit-compatible smart home products for a while, like the simple but functional Eve Degree. As you'd expect from a Bluetooth device, you'll need to be relatively close to the Aqua to control it with the app. You can also sync it to a HomeKit hub to control it from afar. You can use Apple's HomePod smart speaker, an Apple TV or an iPad as a home hub.
Installing the Aqua should be a simple matter of screwing it onto your faucet. Once it's in place, you can turn on your sprinkler with the app, your voice or a button on the front of the device. The Aqua will shut off on its own after a set amount of time so you don't need to worry about overwatering. You can also schedule it to run at certain times.
The competition
The Aqua's one of the only smart sprinklers compatible with a simple faucet. Most require a full in-ground sprinkler system, so I like the simplicity of the Aqua. It will compete with the similar Orbit B-hyve Smart Hose Faucet Timer.
The B-hyve Timer also works with just a hose and faucet. It's cheaper than the Aqua at $40 for the Bluetooth model and $70 for a model with a hub. B-hyve also includes Orbit's weather monitoring, so it can set a smart schedule for you that adapts to weather changes like rain on the fly.
The Aqua's main advantage looks to be Siri, which could be enough to make it worth considering if you've already invested in a HomeKit smart home.