5 Best Smart Sprinkler Controllers That Can Help Lower Your Water Bill

WHY WE LOVE IT: You probably know Moen as a manufacturer of kitchen and bath fixtures, but the brand has also invested heavily in water efficiency and smart home technology. In our annual Good Housekeeping Home Reno Awards, it took home top honors for its intuitive design and exceptional water savings, which earned it WaterSense certification.

HOW IT WORKS: What differentiates the Moen from other solutions is its use of soil sensors that are inserted directly into your lawn and garden beds. That means the system is literally pulling data from the source, measuring how wet your soil actually is before deciding whether watering is needed. Though at $70 a pop on top of the controller, the sensors add to the cost of the system.

As with other smart sprinkler controls, the Moen is designed to be integrated with an existing in-ground system. It comes in eight-zone and 16-zone configurations, depending on the size of your yard.

EASE OF USE: The controller retrofits easily to existing irrigation equipment. An outdoor enclosure is sold separately if you choose to install the device on an exterior wall using the mounting hardware provided.

SMART HOME INTEGRATION: The controller is compatible with Amazon and Google. It can also be integrated with Moen’s Flo Smart Water Monitor & Shutoff, which allows you to track irrigation patterns in the context of your home’s total water consumption. Flo will shut off the irrigation if it detects a leak in the system.

TESTER NOTES: A GH Institute staffer installed the 16-zone system at her home on Long Island, New York, in a town with strict lawn irrigation regulations. “The controller was very easy to set up, as was placement of the soil sensors throughout the yard,” she said. The Moen app was intuitive, and it made it easy to pair the soil sensors with the main controller.

WHY WE LOVE IT: While most smart sprinkler controllers are designed to integrate with an existing in-ground irrigation system, Irrigreen XP is geared toward homeowners who want to install an entire system from scratch. Based on the size of your yard, you purchase a bundle that includes a smart controller, between one and six sprinkler heads, and various wires and cables.

HOW IT WORKS: Irrigreen is one of the most innovative smart irrigation systems we’ve seen, leveraging artificial intelligence to digitally map a lawn and deliver water only where it’s needed. Basically, instead of the overlapping arcs of water most in-ground irrigation systems use to cover a lawn, Irrigreen features multi-stream nozzles that apply an even volume of water across any shaped lawn.

Irrigreen does not yet have the WaterSense label. However, our engineers reviewed independent testing of the Irrigreen system and found that it uses about 40% less water than traditional in-ground irrigation.

EASE OF USE: You need to purchase the PVC or poly piping that will transport water throughout the yard and dig all the trenches. Though Irrigreen provides detailed instructions for DIYers, our experts say the job will be best left to a professional in most circumstances; the Irrigreen website includes a network of qualified installers.

SMART HOME INTEGRATION: Irrigreen is only compatible with Amazon Alexa, so its integration is more limited than most smart sprinkler controllers.

TESTER NOTES: We sent the system to one of our lawn care experts in Nashville for a test run. “Very impressed with the overall functionality of the system,” he reported. “The app was extremely easy to use and allowed for quick and easy adjustments as needed.” Though installation still involves trenches throughout the yard, the fact that it uses fewer sprinkler heads means a lot less digging. Testers found the online Design Your Lawn tool helpful for determining how many sprinkler heads and pipes were required for their yard.

WHY WE LOVE IT: After testing several of these devices, our experts settled on the B-hyve Hose Faucet Timer as the best inline hose timer, thanks to its durable design, simple setup, and WaterSense certification.

HOW IT WORKS: This type of smart sprinkler uses a standard garden hose spigot with a regular sprinkler attached to the other end, making it cost-effective to bring automated watering to yards. While we tested the one-port timer (meaning it works with just one hose), it also comes in two- and four-port configurations, so you can scale up the hose-based irrigation to cover a larger lawn or additional garden beds.

EASE OF USE: The timer can be programmed directly on the device, locally via Bluetooth, and remotely through Wi-Fi and the B-hyve app. We operated the B-hyve all three ways during testing. If you just want to program the sprinkler to water the lawn a few times a week, manual operation works just fine. For more advanced programming, including coordination with any local water restrictions, you're better off using the app, with its more robust feature set. Because it only controls the water flow from one hose, you’re limited to how large a lawn you can water.

SMART HOME INTEGRATION: This sprinkler's Wi-Fi connectivity enables far greater control and intelligence than manual operation, for example, adjusting your irrigation schedule based on local weather data and even heeding local water restrictions during periods of extreme drought. Setup was simple through the B-hyve app. Plus, it's compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home smart speakers.

TESTER NOTES: "It was so easy connecting the timer to my spigot and hose," said Dahl, who tested the device at his Las Vegas home. "I like a lot of the features in the app, including the ability to set drought settings, since water restrictions are common in my neighborhood."