The Secret Life of Bees

When I was a kid I liked to imagine what the world looked like to a bee. I had read or heard somewhere that bees are able to see ultraviolet light. In the secret world of bees, flowers that look the same to you and I may look very different to the bee. Some flowers, for example, have brightly colored ultraviolet pedals that direct the bees to pollen and nectar, like little bee runways. Most biologists think the bees and flowers co-evolved this special relationship. So what do bees and flowers have to do with Rachio?

When I first heard about Rachio, I was excited about the possibility of having a convenient way to manage my sprinklers using my smartphone. I’ve been in my house for almost 15 years and have pretty much left my sprinkler settings where I found them when I moved in. With an Iro, I thought, I can easily adjust my watering schedule and run my sprinklers from anywhere. And that’s about as far as I let my imagination go until I finally received a working Iro and installed it at my house. Even though I had worked on creating the Rachio iOS app for several months, nothing really prepared me for the experience of using it with an actual Iro and Rachio’s cloud services to manage my sprinklers. The first time I set up my zones and created a watering schedule I realized that I have been completely unaware of the secret world that is my yard.

Over the past few months, because of my Iro and Rachio’s intelligent software, my relationship with my yard has evolved. For the first time in 15 years I am beginning to understand my yard and its needs. Where before we were strangers at best, and enemies at worse, now my yard and I are becoming friends and partners. I am becoming much more sensitive to my yard’s needs and my yard is thanking me by looking beautiful and healthy (and drinking a lot less water). Who knows, maybe some day I might actually experience what it feels like to be a bee.

Epilogue

When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT), it’s easy to imagine smart devices taking over all aspects of our lives “freeing us” to focus on other things. When you think about it in those terms, the brave new IoT world seems like one that will leave us even more disconnected from nature and each other. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Here at Rachio, we are passionate about helping people enjoy their yards and, more importantly, get back in touch with that little bit of nature that’s right outside the door. While the Iro smart sprinkler controller definitely frees people from having to figure out and manage their irrigation system, I have discovered first hand that it does so in a way that actually creates a deeper connection with nature and the environment...while saving lots of water and money!