If you’ve ever bought expensive plants or ground cover only to watch them wilt and die you might like the EasyBloom Plant Sensor.

 

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To start, download the software from www.easybloom.com. The EasyBloom is PC compatible (there's also MAC software available on the site). Once you have downloaded the software, plug in the EasyBloom via a USB port, to your computer. This will set up your EasyBloom device for use. You then disconnect the device from the computer and take it where it's needed.

 

There are three different modes you can choose from: Recommend, Monitor or Water:

• The Recommend mode will gather the environmental data, including sunlight, soil moisture, and temperature, from a location where you would like to plant. The EasyBloom Web site will then analyze the data and recommend flora that will ideally grow in that location from a database of over 5,000, flowers, trees, herbs, vegetables and other plants.
• The Monitor mode will help to determine what is wrong with an existing plant to see if it can be saved or to give you data on to how to make it thrive. 
• Finally, the Water mode (my favorite since I am a real believer in plants and ground cover that do not require much water), will help you know when and if plants need to be watered. If desired, with this mode you can take the device from plant to plant and it will sound an alarm if the plant is in need of water. 

Of note here is that EasyBloom will also work indoors, whereby you can monitor inside conditions to see which plants might grow best in a given area of your home.

The next step after choosing the mode on the sensor is to place the EasyBloom device in the soil where you would like to gather data. That’s the easy part. The sensor is a sturdy device, not likely to get broken, sticks up high enough and the bright colors on the plastic flower top are easily visible from afar.

 

After leaving in the sensor for the recommended 24 hours (using the Recommend mode) we plugged in the device to our computer. The software is very user friendly and it's actually fun to see the database results for the data collected.

 

The EasyBloom sensor is a unique hardware/software solution that I think amateur and pro gardeners alike will be able to use. Most importantly, it will cut down on the cost and time spent on gardening without proper data. 

 

List Price: $59.95

About Gadget Grrl

Diana Forbes, a.k.a. Gadget Grrl™, loves sharing the latest and greatest technology with consumers. Her "Gadget Grrl" column runs both online and in print with a circulation of 3 million readers. She appears on national and local television shows featuring live demos of the latest trends in consumer products. For more information, visit Gadget Grrl.