The Oto Smart Sprinkler makes it easy to keep your lawn watered—as long as it gets three hours a day of direct sun to stay charged.
TriangleUp Buy Now Multiple Buying Options Available $589 $499 at Amazon $589 $499 at Oto Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Rating: 9 /10 Open rating explainer Information WIRED Solar panel is a game changer. App is easy to navigate during both setup and daily use. Watering is accurate and thorough. Built-in weather intelligence helps to avoid unnecessary runs.
TIRED Distant watering can land with heavy pressure, potentially damaging plants.
One of the major headaches of stand-alone smart sprinklers that attach to a garden hose is that they require power to operate. Since few folks have electrical outlets in the middle of their lawns, configuring a smart sprinkler means connecting not just a hose but also a long power cable to the device, creating double the effort and double the chance for something to get chewed up by a lawn mower. The Oto Smart Sprinkler solves for this problem with solar power, which makes for not only a far more flexible installation than its smart-sprinkler competitors but also ongoing easy use.
With a strong focus on quick setup and simplicity of function, Oto provides a refreshing alternative in the smart sprinkler market. The only question: Does its useful innovation justify its blisteringly high price tag?
Set and Forget When I unboxed the Oto Smart Sprinkler for the first time, I was convinced something must be missing—perhaps even a second box with more parts? But as it turns out, the Oto really is as streamlined as it claims to be. The sprinkler measures just 16 x 12 x 4 inches and weighs about 6 pounds. Next to the similarly featured but monstrous-by-comparison Aiper IrriSense 2 , the Oto is practically miniature.
Being pint-sized makes lawn irrigation even easier than expected. You can place the unit on the ground, mount it to a hardscape, or even attach it to a fence (all with the included metal bracket). If you want to play things fast and loose, you can situate it to stand freely without the bracket, though the bracket helps you ensure it’s replaced in the exact same location if it’s ever removed (such as during the winter months) for even irrigation.
The only real placement caveat is that in order to have it operate cordlessly, the Oto requires at least three hours a day of direct sunlight to its top-mounted 2.2-watt solar panel to keep its internal 5,400-mAh battery topped up. Keep this in mind as you decide where to install your brackets—you definitely don't want to block too much of the sun’s rays.
Video: Christopher Null Before taking it outside for its first use, Oto instructs you to charge the device overnight via wall power (though you could certainly just leave it in the sun for a few days instead). You'll do this using the included power adapter with 50 feet of cable. You can also lean on the plugged-in charging option if you can’t squeeze out enough sunshine on a regular basis (albeit in that case, this irrigation solution is probably not for you). You’ll find the power cable stored inside the Oto hardware, in a large hollow space beneath the solar panel. This hollow space is intentional and isn’t used for anything more than supporting the panel above, but it’s probably best not to leave the power adapter inside permanently, as it this chamber can get rather wet.
The Oto can throw water up to a distance of 40 feet in a 360-degree radius of the device, which equates to a maximum of 5,000 square feet of coverage, enough for a sizable lawn. (That’s about on par with Aiper.) The hose connector on the side of the device is easy to work with and secure; I experienced no leaks at all when connecting it to a standard garden hose. A 50-foot maximum length for your hose is specified to ensure water pressure remains sufficient.
Digital Droplets Just about everything on the Oto happens via its app (though there’s a manual switch on top of the device you can use to speed up a run that’s pending in the app). That app sets up via a 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi connection to your home network, so you’ll need to make sure your yard has effective wireless coverage.
Once configured, setup proceeds much like the Aiper and pricier Irrigreen apps: You create a zone, then use the app to define its boundaries. Similar to the aforementioned systems, Oto’s sprinkler is designed for precision watering, firing water in a beam in a single direction instead of a wide spray. That said, Oto’s spray is comparably narrow, only hitting a single, designated patch instead of producing a two-dimensional curtain of water like Irrigreen’s “water printing” system. You get a nice preview of this as you set the boundaries of your yard.
Like its competitors, Oto lets you set each zone as a spot (for watering a single tree, perhaps), a line (for a flowerbed), or a 2-D area (for a yard). I tested all of these modes but spent most of my time working with area zones, which are the most complex option. When defining an area zone, I found Oto’s system to be virtually identical to that of Irrigreen and Aiper, though ever so slightly slower to respond to commands. Even so, it’s very easy to use: A simple interface lets you drop points around the sprinkler to define the boundaries of the zone. When you’ve made a full circle around the sprinkler, the area is complete.
Once configured, you can assign each zone a schedule, with copious options available around which days to water (odd days, even days, select days of the week, every day), and designate a start time (though there is no tying time to sundown or sunrise). Each schedule also gets a weekly watering limit (in inches of depth), which you'll then parse out over each week’s watering runs. Weather intelligence features let you elect to skip watering if your zip code receives measurable rainfall or if winds are high (both based on internet reports); the user can tweak both the amount of rain and windspeed needed to trigger a skip. The app logs the 20 most recent runs and includes a calendar that details upcoming events.
When watering an area, Oto takes a novel approach to covering the lawn, first moving in circular arcs directly around the sprinkler, then slowly increasing in range with each successive swipe. When finished, it does additional “clean-up” runs to hit any areas that the initial watering arcs didn't reach. The speed is slow enough and the size of the water’s beam is large enough that the resulting coverage is solid. After test runs, I found the yard to be plenty wet across the entire zone, with no dry patches.
As with all sprinklers, changes in water pressure can make for occasional over- or underwatering of areas, but I found this to be a minimal problem when using the Oto. However, when watering at the terminus of Oto’s range, the power needed to throw the water that far can make for a strong splashdown, which may result in some soil erosion or damage to more sensitive plants.
The Oto also has a “play mode” option that lets you use the sprinkler for a watery game of chase or a more random “splash tag” mode, aka “try to avoid getting hit by the water.” Pro tip: It’s impossible not to get hit.
Throughout my testing, the unit performed exactly as expected, and I never needed to top up the battery with a cable. I also have full faith in the solar-power system—the battery icon never displayed anything other than completely full.
The $499 asking price puts Oto in closer competition with Aiper’s IrriSense 2 than the $2,000-plus Irrigreen. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a price war break out in this market as the summer heats up and yards dry out. For now, Oto’s solar power feature alone merits a slightly higher price tag. Given that performance is similar, for the moment, Oto stands as my top pick for a smart stand-alone sprinkler product.
$589 $499 at Amazon $589 $499 at Oto
