Watering your garden, but not too much

When it rains, it pours, or so the saying goes. But, what about when it doesn't pour at all? These days most homes are equipped with sprinklers, though they can be quite the water guzzler. So to combat wasteful water use, HydroPoint Data Systems, a Petaluma, California-based startup, founded in 2002, makes sure you don't have to worry about it. As the world's first water monitoring sprinkler system, WeatherTRAK allows users to monitor their irrigation systems with real-time feedback on field conditions, reducing the number of required site visits.

The system, seemingly complex, takes in weather data from 40,000 independently operated stations in order to create a high-resolution map, which then informs WeatherTRAK of everything from rainfall to evaporation rate. After inputting the type of climate, plant species and other environmental factors, the plants end up being watered just the right amount after all this information is transmitted to the field via cellular networks.

Though HydroPoint says investing in the system and returns takes about two years, in 2007 alone its 15,000 subscribers saved more than 6.7 billion gallons of water, reducing costs by a a total of $60 million.

More info: http://earth2tech.com/2008/11/01/control-your-sprinkler-from-the-web-with-hydropoint/