Uses a Zigbee communication protocol that’s simpler and more reliable than using Bluetooth or Wifi. Convenience: A water timer makes watering your lawn extremely convenient. You don’t have to manually turn your sprinklers on and off; the system does it for you.

We should note that the products we’re looking at here are mostly smart hose faucet timer systems. They attach to a standard garden hose spigot, and are not the same as those that are used in conjunction with a lawn sprinkler system. The Rain Bird interface reviewed below does use a lawn sprinkler system, so homeowners with an existing system can consider that option, or others such as the Rachio 3 Sprinkler Timer. The Zilker Smarter Water Hose Timer was a really great water timer system that tied in with local weather data to water your garden and lawn as efficiently as possible. It also featured a great leak-detection system, which was quite helpful. The built-in temperature sensor of the Gardena Smart Water Control lets you know if frost is on the way so you can immediately change your watering schedule and make plans to shut down your irrigation system for the winter season. You can also but an extra moisture sensor that you insert into the soil so it measures the soil moisture level. What do you want your timer to tell you? The first I noticed when I started using the LinkTap smart water timer was that the actual build quality was really good, especially compared to most other models, especially other smart water timers I looked at. You can tell straight away, this model is a quality piece of kit that is designed to last. No cheap plastics, nice and strong, durable, it really is in a class of its own.

SMART WATERING TIMER with Wi-Fi HUB

Some timer boxes have lights to let you know how low the battery is or how strong the signal is. Other timers have just a smooth front to the timer, and you need to access the app for all the information.

While RainRobot is a decent all-around smart irrigation system, it does come up short in a few major ways.This system connects to a garden hose spigot and is controlled with an app available on iOS and Android.