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Growing your own veggies, herbs, and other edible plants is the way of the future. By growing and harvesting your own crops, even though on a small scale, you are reducing transport costs and keep control over how exactly your food is grown. Whether or not is organically and untreated with pesticides.
Although hydroponic growing in your home sounds great in theory, reality is that there are few to none mid-sized hydroponic systems available on the consumer market that look good too. This will soon change with the release of the Niwa smart hydroponic growing system.
What’s so special about this system?
Well, it will be afforable and easy to use. Most existing setups are pretty hard to operate properly. The makers of Niwa say that with their system, hydroponic growing will be child’s play. They promise “anyone, even with no gardening knowledge whatsoever, can grow like an experienced farmer.”
By offering ease of use at relative low costs combined with an elegant appearance the company may cause a breaktrough on the home hydroponics market.
What exactly is Niwa?
Niwa is a fully automated, plug and play hydroponic growing kit that takes care of the apropriate amount of lighting and ventilation. It also regulates humidity levels, makes sure the right amount of nutrients are delivered through the water.
On top of that it’s smart too. Which means that it features an array of sensors and intelligent controls that you can monitor or influence via the corresponding smartphone app. It may for example ask you if the plant already has leaves in order to determine the development stage of your produce after which it can adjust settings to optimize growing conditions.
Niwa is great for kids too as an educational device. By providing feedback on growth stages and conditions children can learn all about growing plants and develop green fingers at young age.
Why hydroponics?
Hydroponic growing has quit a lot of advantages over traditional soil-based gardening. Futurists think that hydroponics will become mainstream within time. Not only households will embrace this type of sustainable food supply as hydroponics is going to play a very big role in local urban food production.
Adavantages including lower water use, better nutrient delivery, ability to harvest sooner and more. Another advantage is that it allows for producing fresh food all year long.
How does the Niwa smart hydroponics system work?
“Imagine taking complex greenhouse technology and putting it right in your living room. Niwa is a fully automated hydroponic system that uses sensors and actuators to simulate real environmental conditions. To start growing, just tell our app what kind of plant you’ve selected. A program specific to that plant will load, initiating a lighting and irrigation sequence and the right conditions for the type of plant and its stage of growth. As it grows, the app will ask for feedback, for example, can you see any leaves? The software will then adjust its settings based on this feedback to provide an even better environment for your plant to thrive.” – Niwa
Niwa will soon launch on Kickstarter. We are convinced funding will be a huge success. If you can’t wait you can sign up here to pre-order or become a beta tester.
Years ago there were stories about how plants in offices and elderly peoples’ homes could lower sickness rates etc. One aspect they found out was that interacting with their environment kept people alert and on their toes. That would man, actively tending these plants. A closed hydroponics system might not quite fit that bill. But it is essential for the economical management of agricultural hydroponics or aquaponics ventures and as such, if sales for one drive down the prices of the other (such as automobile sales to private persons eventually make them affordable for businesses too), it has my blessing 🙂
please tell me were I can purchase one of these indoor grow houses
You can pre-order here http://getniwa.com/store.html