Best WiFi Water Hose Timers

We tried seven smart hose timers to see how well they work and whether they can save you water—and money

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Smart sprinkler controllers are a great way to cut down on home water usage, sparing both your wallet and the planet. But they have one key limitation that prevents them from being used by most consumers: They require an in-ground sprinkler system.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, only 20 percent of U.S. homes as of 2019 had an automatic irrigation system, meaning there are a lot of backyard warriors with just a garden hose and oscillating sprinkler head who can't use a smart controller. Luckily, just as smart sprinkler controllers have grown in popularity, manufacturers have quietly brought the same smarts to the humble water hose timer.

Today's WiFi water hose timers can pull in weather data to adjust watering schedules on the fly, connect to other smart home devices, and take voice commands from digital assistants. Because they connect to garden hoses, they also cost a lot less than controllers and give you many more watering options. You can connect them to everything from a soaker hose buried in garden beds (my personal backyard use case) to drip irrigation lines for potted plants.

But for all their promise, many smart hose timers are held back by poorly designed app interfaces, buggy software and plug-in bridges. (Because all hose timers run on battery power, most rely on plug-in bridges and dongles to connect them to your home WiFi network.)

To help you find the best WiFi water hose timer, I put seven of them to the test in my own suburban New Jersey backyard. The lineup includes major irrigation equipment manufacturers Melnor and Orbit, popular upstarts Eve and Rachio, and lesser-known brands Diivoo, Netro, and RainPoint. Read on for a detailed review of each model.

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