Are Automatic Houseplant Watering Systems Worth it? I Tested 2 to Find Out [CNET]

Automatic watering kits are designed to keep your plants quenched and happy. Here’s how they work and whether you should buy one for your houseplants.

Caring for houseplants is such a rewarding experience because they do more than beautify your home. Watering sessions are particularly great for stress relief. As you water each plant, you can ponder new growth and admire its long-term development.

But finding time to water houseplants gets trickier as your collection grows. For me, that means distributing several gallons of water among a minimum of 72 individual plants weekly. The whole operation takes around 30 minutes as I alternate between filling and emptying my watering can.

It also means overthinking my watering schedule before vacations. Most beginner houseplants are forgiving, but even they struggle on longer vacations. Leaving for more than two weeks inevitably means calling a plant sitter and writing exact instructions.

Don’t get me wrong, I immensely enjoy watering my plants and have reliable plant sitters, but it never hurts to streamline the process. So I decided to pick up a couple of indoor automatic watering systems, which differ from smart gardens, to see if they can make hands-free watering a reality.

After a few weeks of trying them out, I think the idea has merit. Still, they require a lot of trial and error to get your desired results. Let’s explore why.

The automatic watering kits I tested

For this experiment, I chose two indoor automatic watering systems: Sancruz IC205S and Onsast AUTO01. It’s fine if you don’t recognize the brands since these products usually come from generic manufacturers. I’ve yet to find an indoor watering system from a mainstream brand. I wanted to try a Moistenland Wi-Fi plant waterer but held off to keep my evaluation simple.

Sancruz IC205S

• Internal jet pump: 400 ml per minute (13.5 ounces)
• 32.8 feet of clear silicone tubing
• 15 nonadjustable drip stakes
• Rechargeable lithium-ion battery or USB-C cable for power

Of the two products, the Sancruz IC205S sports a more traditional design with a central unit that integrates a timer, internal water pump and battery backup. I picked Sancruz because it uses a jet pump, which pulls water up from the reservoir — this is common among automatic plant waterers.

The humidity sensor is intriguing because there’s a possibility of watering plants when they need it rather than on a fixed schedule. Most indoor drip irrigation systems cost between $25 and $50, so Sancruz’s $30 price tag seemed like a good choice for an average unit.

Onsast AUTO01

• External submersible pump: 800 ml per minute (27.1 ounces)
• 24 feet of gray silicone tubing
• 12 adjustable drippers
• Wired 12-volt DC power supply

I enjoy hunting for cheap tech, so the Onsast AUTO01 was a no-brainer. It cost just $13.50 after a coupon knocked 25% off the $18 list price. Unlike jet pumps, Onsast’s external submersible pump pushes water for another comparison point. Submersible pumps are more powerful than jet pumps because they harness the water pressure around them.

The adjustable drippers and pump speeds allow you to customize the amount of water going to each plant, meaning there’s more potential to dial in specific settings. Its simplistic user interface was another factor to consider. Cheaper automatic waterers lean on minimalist controls, so we’ll see if it helps or hinders the Onsast.

Easy installation

I started by choosing a place for my control units. The setup manuals say to mount it anywhere above the water tank. Always place the control unit and the drippers above the water tank and intake filter (or submersible pump). This prevents the system from siphoning the entire jug onto your floor after running.

I use 5-gallon Hedpak cubes for my water tanks because they’re easy to find in stores. (Plus, they’re great for filtering the purified water my carnivorous plants need.) A 5-gallon bucket with a lid also works, but you’ll need to drill a hole in the lid for the intake tube.

For Sancruz, I measured and cut the tubing that connects the water reservoir to the control unit’s water inlet. Another length of hose linked this to the first plant.

I cut the tube next to each plant and installed a T-connector with enough hose to nearly reach the plant’s main stem. I attached a dripper to the end of the short hose and anchored it into the plant’s soil. I repeated the process until I had drippers where I wanted. The final Sancruz dripper attaches directly to the primary hose, though I needed an end plug for Onsast since it uses two hose sizes.

Sancruz’s single tube size simplified T-connector and dripper stake placement. My biggest gripe with this process was routing the hose in a way that didn’t tip over smaller pots but wasn’t as bad as getting the right dripper adjustments.

Adjusting your drippers is a hassle

With the tubing in place, you’ll move on to the most complicated part: making adjustments. Be aware that the complexity of this step increases with the more drippers you add.

Sancruz was immediately easier to adjust because it uses only a single pump speed, and the included dripper stakes have only one output level. This is great for three similar-size pots since I needed only to figure out how often to run the drippers and for how long. I checked the plants daily and adjusted my settings for the desired results.

My only complaint about adjusting Sancruz was that scaling to larger pots meant adding multiple drippers to the same pot. The 15 dripper stakes aren’t always suitable for 15 plants, especially large houseplants that consume more water.

Output isn’t a problem for Onsast’s adjustable drippers because you can send extra water to larger pots while limiting it in smaller ones. However, adjustable drippers created a different hurdle since every adjustment to a single dripper affected the overall pressure in the water supply line.

This meant keeping the pump in manual mode and constantly jumping between multiple drippers until they behaved correctly. I measured the water output many times to find the right balance but had to empty my water trays repeatedly throughout the process.

Even then, there were occasional issues with overly full water trays underneath my plants after a few test cycles. But once you have the right dripper balance, the Onsast works like a dream. It uses less water than my previous hand-watering regimen while maintaining soil moisture levels.

Still, Onsast’s hose completely drained after every session, which meant each dripper had to clear out air bubbles to function. I solved this by opening each dripper valve more and shortening the pump’s runtime to account for the higher flow rate. Sancruz prevented this issue by including an anti-siphon valve in the box.

Intuitive timer controls make a world of difference

The final piece of the indoor automatic watering system puzzle is the timer. When programming the Sancruz, you turn the central dial until the text for your desired setting lines up with the white arrow to the right. Even without the arrow, the settings wheel text displays in a way that only the horizontal, upright text is the current selection.

The Sancruz manual tells you to start by setting the clock and proceeding clockwise to subsequent settings until you reach the “On” setting, which activates the program. The small LCD leaves no room for ambiguity by specifically saying when it starts each day, how long the watering takes (in seconds or minutes) and how often the interval is (in hours or days).

Adjust each setting with the plus and minus buttons before confirming with “OK.” There are also manual and humidity settings that override the programming. Because there’s only one humidity sensor, you’ll need to track how quickly your other pots dry out. It didn’t work in my situation since pots need to be very dry, but I’ll try it eventually on some less-thirsty plants.

Onsast’s interface is a different story. The display shows only two digits with small red LED indicators to tell you whether the Time, Min or Day setup option is active. You can hit the setup button to cycle between options while choosing a specific number with the central dial. Hitting the setup button again will flash the screen three times to confirm it’s ready.

That seems straightforward until you realize that 0 doesn’t always mean “Off.” For example, setting the Day interval to “0” will water daily while “1” will work every other day. The Time setting is similarly confusing because a setting of “1” means once every 24 hours, while “6” means six times every 24 hours (every four hours). This meant extra mental math every time I set the Onsast.

I’m mostly convinced this tech can keep my houseplants alive

My biggest takeaway from this experience is how important it is to understand your houseplants’ water needs before setting up an automatic plant waterer. I’m fortunate to have known this ahead of time, but it was still a struggle to optimize my dripper setup.

Sancruz was the easiest to program. Aside from a glance at the start of setup, I like how I didn’t need to consult the manual each time I adjusted the settings. Its dripper stakes were effortless to set up, though you may need multiples in larger pots. I suspect the clear tubing will grow algae over time, so it may be harder to keep clean long-term than Onsast.

While the Onsast’s confusing controls tested my patience more than once, it was a clear winner for flexibility and power — even without a battery backup. The adjustable drippers are tedious but work well once you get used to them. Plus, the gray tubing resists algae growth like a champ.

For budget reasons, I wouldn’t use these products for every houseplant in my home. I’d stick to the plants most vulnerable to drying out on vacation.