30-plant Home 4.0<\/a>, to be exact\u2014was the first tester to arrive at my house. I had it unboxed and set up within a couple of hours, lights on and water pump running. I’m already a pro! I thought.<\/p>\nSure enough, within a couple of weeks, all of Gardyn’s proprietary seed-filled yCubes had sprouted, and a couple of weeks after that, I was harvesting bowlfuls of herbs and salad greens. Even though from setup to harvest the Gardyn required the use of about five brain cells, I was quite pleased with myself, despite having long ago given up gardening outdoors due to deer, rabbits, and my own incompetence with anything other than starts from the big-box store.<\/p>\n
What I failed to understand, but would come to grasp with subsequent systems, was that indoor hydroponic gardening is just as hard in some ways as outdoor gardening. I had no way of knowing this, however, because Gardyn’s pricey add-on app and AI gardening assistant, \u201cKelby,\u201d had been doing all the real work via a network of sensors and live-view cameras (two on the larger Home model, one on the smaller Studio).<\/p>\n
Easy Living<\/h2>\n
My new friend Kelby had been gathering data in order to set its own watering times, schedule its 60 LED lights, and send me the occasional customized task that never took longer than 10 minutes. And this customized maintenance isn’t just helpful for convenience, as mold, bacteria, or roots clogging up the plumbing are extremely common in hydroponic gardening. Kelby told me when to add the needed nutrients (included) and how much to add, when and how to attend to the plants\u2019 roots, and even when to harvest.<\/p>\n\n![\"Image](\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\")
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/685085037c47352c1aa76fc4\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Roots-SOURCE-Kat%2520Merck.png\")
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/685083cbca63552186f5341c\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Kelby-source-kat%2520merck.jpg\")