OKO

Forgotten watering and plants that quietly wither are familiar failures for anyone who keeps greenery indoors. OKO, presented as a Kickstarter project, is pitched at exactly that problem. According to the campaign, it is a smart device that redesigns the kind of high-precision environmental sensors used by professional farmers for home use.

Four readings from one stake

The maker says OKO is simply inserted into a pot, where it detects moisture, temperature, air humidity and pH in real time. Its multi-sensor technology is described as being developed from equipment used in agriculture, and the campaign notes that pH sensing is rare in a home device. The unit itself is designed to be compact and unobtrusive in a planter.

An app that suggests what to do

Rather than only charting numbers, the companion smartphone app is said to recommend concrete actions via push notifications, with prompts along the lines of "water now," "humidity is too low" or "soil pH is leaning alkaline." Users can register the species they are growing so advice is based on that plant's preferred conditions, allowing a cactus and a moisture-loving fern to be treated very differently.

• Multiple sensors can be managed at once, each with its own name and location, shown in a single list
• Rechargeable built-in battery rated by the maker for up to 1 year per full charge
• Bluetooth connection with no Wi-Fi setup; pairing by opening the app and bringing the device close
• Extensive use of renewable materials and minimal packaging, according to the campaign

Plans beyond the pot

The team behind OKO is described as a startup working at the intersection of agricultural technology and IoT. The campaign says cloud data backup and a "gardener community" for sharing growth records are in development, and it raises the longer-term idea of networking multiple units for group plant management and AI-assisted diagnosis. It also positions OKO for balcony vegetable gardens, small community gardens and classroom use in environmental and STEM education.