Smart planter waters itself and teaches you how to garden

No household item is safe from being remade into a smart, connected device these days. If a salt shaker can now play music and change color, then a smart outdoor planter is only par for the course. Indeed, the new Grow Duo from smart gardening startup Grow offers exactly that: a tech-enhanced way to conveniently grow food at home.

Launched today, Grow Duo is billed as “the world’s first outdoor connected self-watering planter.” That means once you hook up the battery-operated planter box to a hose, it will take care of the watering automatically. The planter comes with a free Android/iOS app, of course, which will alert you to necessary tasks such as adding nutrients, pruning, and harvesting, based on data collected by the environmental sensors in the planter. The app also incorporates expert gardening advice and can recommend the best plants to grow based on your specific environmental data and growing history.

Grow Duo is retailing for $249 but preorders are currently going for $199, and that includes the soil, seeds, and nutrients you need to get started. The product is slated to ship in early 2018. In addition to the smart planter, Grow also offers organic “seed-sheets” which eliminate the need for manual sowing. These Grow Kits, for everything from carrots to arugula, will run between $6 and $20 each and are delivered to your door.