Pots need water more often than anybody remembers to give it. A bed holds moisture for days; a pot in the sun can be dry by the next morning, and the window for watering it is the half hour before you leave for work or after you get home — which is exactly when you are doing six other things. Then there are the weeks you are not there at all. This automatic watering system takes the remembering out of it. A small pump sits between a bucket of water and your pots, you tell it how often and for how long, and it waters them on that schedule whether you are standing there or not.

Why It Stands Out

• It needs no tap — the pump draws from any bucket, drum, laundry tub or container you already own, so it works on a balcony or a courtyard with no outdoor tap anywhere near it.
• It needs no power point — a rechargeable battery inside, charged over USB, so nothing runs back to the house and nothing trails across the paving.
• At least two months on one charge — set it up and the battery is not something you think about again for a season.
• You set both numbers — the interval from 1 to 9 days and the pour from 1 to 99 seconds. That is what makes a garden watering timer match your pots instead of running a fixed cycle somebody else chose.
• It runs a full drip irrigation kit off a bucket — the outlet splits through the connectors to every head, so one pump feeds the whole line with no tap, no mains pressure and no regulator anywhere in it.
• The display tells you where it's at — OF when the battery is full, ON while charging, LO when it's getting low. You are never guessing.
• 1,200 mL a minute — enough flow to feed every head on the line in one short pour rather than trickling for an hour.

Where to Use It

• On a row of pots along the deck or the back fence — the job it does best, and the part of the garden that suffers first whenever the week gets busy.
• Over a raised bed of vegetables, heads pushed in beside the seedlings. A watering system for a raised garden bed does not have to be plumbed in.
• On a balcony with no tap, no hose and nowhere to run one — a balcony watering system that only needs a bucket on the floor.
• In the greenhouse or under the shade house, where the air stays warm and pots dry out fastest all year.
• Across a group of hanging baskets, the pots everybody forgets until they are already crisp.
• On indoor pot plants near a window, with the container tucked out of sight under the bench.
• Any time you're away — a weekend, a fortnight, a work trip. Nine days between waterings covers most of them without anyone coming round.

How It Works

1. The pump sits between your water container and your pots — one tube into the IN port from the bucket, one out of the OUT port to the heads. That is automatic drip irrigation with nothing plumbed in.
2. You set two numbers — DAY sets how many days between waterings, from 1 to 9. TIME sets how many seconds it runs, from 1 to 99.
3. The pump feeds the whole line at once — the outlet tube splits through the tee and five-way connectors to every head on your setup.
4. The battery charges over USB and the panel reports its state, so the unit holds its schedule without being plugged into anything.

How to Set It Up

1. Put the container lower than the pots, and the pump above the container. This is the one rule that decides whether it works — measure from the bottom of the container to the pump inlet before you cut anything.
2. Cut the tube to length only once everything is in position. Cut long first; you can always trim again.
3. Push the inlet tube into IN and the outlet into OUT, then run the outlet through the connectors to each head.
4. Hang the unit on its hook, somewhere sheltered and above the water line.
5. Set DAY and TIME, then watch one full cycle before you leave it to run on its own.
Tip: work your seconds out with a jug rather than guessing. Run the pump into a measuring jug for ten seconds, see what comes out, and multiply up to what a pot that size actually drinks. Everyone guesses the first time and the guess is always short — the plants look fine for three days and then they don't.

Care and Maintenance

• Keep the container covered. Leaves and grit in the water are the one thing that blocks a drip head.
• Flush the line before each season. Run it a minute on clean water before the first real cycle.
• Charge it before you go away, not once the panel already reads LO.
• Store it dry when it's not in use, with the tubes coiled loosely rather than kinked.

Specifications

What's Included

• 2 head kit — 1 × controller, 2 × sprinkler heads, 1 × tee connector, 1 × hook, 1 × water pipe
• 4 head kit — 1 × controller, 4 × drip heads, 1 × five-way connector, 1 × hook, 1 × black feed pipe, 1 × translucent access pipe
• 8 head kit — 1 × controller, 8 × drip heads, 1 × tee connector, 2 × five-way connectors, 1 × hook, 1 × black feed pipe, 1 × translucent access pipe