The Sprinkler Nerd Show

This is Andy. Welcome, to episode #117 of the Sprinkling Nerd Show.

Today today you just get me and this is a little bit of an experiment. And I would like to frame this episode, around experimenting. So let's talk about that. I'm in my truck right now driving to my office. It is Friday, and I didn't have any, I had one interview queued up for this week, but then I had to postpone it so you get me again, and sometimes I've mentioned this before.

This is the hardest part of podcasting. It is relatively easy to speak with a guest, ask questions, be curious. It is completely different to talk into outer space alone, solo. It's actually much more difficult than you might think, and today I didn't have anything queued up because of that guest cancellation, so I figured I would just kind of do a little, almost like a.

Audio diary today. So I'm in my truck, I'm running an experiment and that's what we're gonna talk about, experimenting. I'm running an experiment right now because I have a brand new wireless laier microphone that I got on Amazon and I don't really remember why I got it. I just thought that my current lavalier mic, that's wireless just really.

It's kind of a pain in the ass, and it only had one mic. And this unit has two mics. It comes in a nice little carrying case, kind of like AirPods, and it's by a company called Holly Land. It's the Lark M one. So if this episode makes it live, it's because the audio quality that we are recording right now was sufficient enough to publish.

So this is going to be an experiment, uh, just to see if the audio quality is good enough in the truck. Because I've tried a few different microphones in the truck and I settled on actually a handheld microphone. The Audiotechnica ATR2100 is connected to USB to Lightning. Works pretty well, but it's a pain in the ass to have to hold a microphone, and there's a lot more background noise in a vehicle than you may believe.

Uh, it's actually not, it's not quiet, right? In a vehicle, there's a lot of background noise and it can muffle the voice. So hopefully if you're hearing this, it's then, then the quality of Thelarche one by Hollyland is sufficient. So that's my experiment right now here today, and I wanna encourage you guys to be experimenting.

And I want to ask you, what have you experimented on this week or maybe what have you experimented with in the last two weeks? And an experiment could be a new product, it could be a new way of doing something, could be a new way of trying to splice a valve a new way that you've never done it before. It could be pitching your proposal to a homeowner in a new way that you've never done before.

I'm, I'm a believer in trying new things, seeing how they work. Doing it again, making an adjustment. And that those little, those little changes over time compound. And after two years goes by, you can look at yourself and go, wow, I am, my business is completely different than it was two years ago. But it wasn't a shift, it wasn't an overnight shift, it was just little things.

Compounding over time can be transformational. So, This is my experiment here right now, and I want to tell you about a device that I experimented with this week. This is only day three of the experiment, and I came across, so I came across a wireless clamp-on ultrasonic flow sensor maybe a month or two ago.

It's called the simpleSUB, the simpleSUB flow meter, and. Uh, what it does is you can clamp it on a half-inch, three-quarter inch or one-inch pipe. It accepts CPVC, PVC, copper type L, and type M, only up to one inch. But all you do is clamp it on with wire ties. It has a cellular. Uh, card, if you want to call it that, a cellular built into it.

You simply turn it on basically, and it connects to the simpleSUB cloud platform right out of the box. And there's a couple reasons that this device, that you might want this device, and there's a couple reasons that it may not be what you want. However, I think it would be worth taking a look at. So the website is Simple Sub Water, I believe that's what it is, simple sub water.com.

I will check that when I get to my office and put the actual link in the show notes if I. If I just misspoke, simple sub water.com, the unit is less than $400 and then it's $5 a month and you can just strap it on any half inch, three quarter inch or one inch pipe, and you can record the daily water use right up to the cloud.

Okay, so if So, you could put this on your irrigation main. Absolutely. Right. If your client wants to know how much water they're using on the irrigation system, You can put this right on the main line if it's one inch or less. And I suppose if it's greater than one inch, you could just put in a section of one inch pipe and then clamp this on.

But so what the device does, is it, it totalize or it logs the gallons and then once a day it sends it up to the server. Okay. So the simple sub meter cannot find brakes in pipes. Because it's not really sending, it's not sending real time flow to the platform. It's sending Totalized flow for the day. Now you could potentially find a leak if your total for the day was more than you suspected it to be.

But it's really designed to, I think, Um, provide individual billing to apartment or living units that don't have their own, uh, water meter. Okay, so if you had water meter going into a building and then there was 20 subunits, but there was only one water meter, you could put this device individually on all the sub mains that feed each of the living units and then build at tenants individually for.

Their water usage without having to. Reach out to your local municipality, hire a certified plumber, put in the meter and create all of that extra billing. You can just simply strap this on, record the daily water use, and then send your, your tenants a water bill at the end of the month. But what makes this really easy is that there is cellular built into it, so you don't have to worry about.

Connecting to somebody's wifi, you don't have to worry about another gateway or a hub. It will connect directly to the cloud. It comes pre-provisioned. It's ready to go. You don't have to make a phone call when you purchase the device. They ask you specifically for the size and the type of pipe that you're going to be putting it on so that they can provision.

The meter before they ship it. And that's really handy because then they, they ensure that it is calibrated correctly for that specific. Pipe size and pipe type. So all you really do is have to clamp it on, and that takes, I mean, literally about 90 seconds to install it. So again, if you have a, a client, commercial tenant, commercial client, or even a, a residential client, and they ask you if there's a way to meter their water, Just for totalizing purposes, this could not be easier.

I'd highly recommend it. I'd highly recommend that you test it out, and it could be, well, I was just gonna suggest that it could be a way to learn the flow of all the zones, but that's really not possible because it only records water. It only sends water used once a day for all of the water used that day.

So it isn't going to send you, give you minute by minute. Uh, reporting. There are other devices that can do that. I have a Stream Labs device in my house that connects to wifi that is absolutely amazing. I'll probably need to record another podcast episode on that device. Stream Labs Water, I think that's what it is.

Stream Labs, water. And if you want. You know, minute by minute recording down to like a 10th of a gallon, it just clamps on and it couldn't be, it couldn't be easier. But you do need to have wifi, so you do need to have access to your customer's wifi and connect it up that way, where the simple sub, you just clamp it on, turn it on, walk away, and you are going to get the water use data.

So this could be an opportunity for you to maybe sell some extra services if you have commercial clients. That have a lot more indoor plumbing, maybe you could, uh, offer this to them, suggest this, uh, and I guess in the, at least try putting it on an irrigation system that you have, which has a one inch main line and does not have a flow sensor.

So of course I would always recommend putting in a flow sensor if you're doing new installation. But if this is a retrofit, you just clamp this on. And it'll pipe the data straight up to the cloud. Uh, hopefully I will be able to have Brad, he's the inventor and the founder of The Simple Sub, and he was a, he was actually a, a lead engineer for Raio for three or four years before he started Simple Sub.

Hopefully I can connect with him and invite him on the podcast to share his story. I think it would be fun to, to hear what it was like to create this product from. Scratch. And again, to me it's just an experiment. I came across the device a couple months ago. I reached out to Brad, uh, it was at the beginning of last week.

We had a Zoom call together. He explained it to me. I immediately bought one. He provisioned it, he shipped it, it arrived this week. And of course I had to install it that very day and it couldn't have been easier. Super simple. And you know, really, that's my, that's what I was experimenting with. This week.

There's a lot more that I was experimenting with, but that's what I can share with you right now because the other experiments are still in the experimentation stage. And I probably will make a video on this where I'll show you the device and some pictures of my installation, so stay tuned for that.

That'll be on the Sprinkler Supply Store YouTube channel, which is, uh, Uh, I think I actually changed the name. It's Sprinkler to Andy on, on YouTube, but I will, I'll make a video and post it there. So you can see in real, real life, well in video format what the device looks like. And I think we're gonna see a lot more of these types of devices and components come, too, come to our business.

You know, the days of having to connect everything with a wire, um, are, I don't wanna say they're coming to an end, but there's a lot more wireless opportunities like this. Coming our way, and if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. So I highly recommend adding more sensors to your system, collecting more data, and providing more insights and accountability to your clients where it makes sense.

Of course, it doesn't make sense for everyone, but I think commercially it probably always makes sense if you're putting in an irrigation system on a commercial property. And a flow sensor was not in the bid. Not in the spec. I would add one, and if it's a one inch size, I would put this on there and I would send your clients the exact amount of water that you are using.

I'd probably even sit down with them, have a conversation, talk about the water needs of the landscape, and probably put a budget together with the client and talk to them about their water needs and how green. They want their grass or which sections of the landscape are, are high priority, put together a water budget and then start sending them daily, weekly, or monthly reports right out of the simple sub.

It's totally possible it's here right now. You can install it, deploy it in just a few minutes, and it would be, it'd be fun to have you guys experiment with this and let me know. Let me know how it goes. So that's what we have here, guys. My two experiments for the day in the week one is this Lark M one Holly Land Wireless lavalier mic, that I hope the audio quality comes out because I just uncomfortably recorded this podcast in my truck Driving to Work.

It's also raining, so we're gonna have to see how, how well it does recording my voice, uh, on top of the rain. And then the weekly experiment with the simple sub. Give it a try. Let me know how it goes and let me know what you are experimenting with. I think it is so key to always be trying something new, and it doesn't have to be groundbreaking.

It could be something so small like you change the way your signature looks this week. It doesn't matter, but it's so important to do something new. Keeps your mind fresh, keeps you in the game. Always be trying something new. So that's all I have guys. I'm stopped at the light here. So now we get to test the audio at a complete stop with what should be total silence in my truck.

Have a great day, have a great weekend, and we'll catch you next week with an awesome guest that I have queued up that is gonna bring this podcast global. Cheers. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.

I've title this episode, Field Capacity My Ass, because honestly, using terms like field capacity can easily confuse the average person. So I wanted to take 5 mins today, and share my experience understanding field capacity, the importance of it, and some tip to help you better understand it. #1 Let's define field capacity Soil field capacity refers to the maximum amount of water that soil can hold against the force of gravity. It is the point at which the soil is fully absorbed with water and excess water has drained away. At field capacity, the soil is holding as much water as it can, and any additional water that is added to the soil will drain away due to the force of gravity. Seeing this on a graph is the best way to understand this concept. The graph looks like a tall spike, then a slow curve down. It is the slow curve that illustrates field capacity. Another way to describe field capacity, is WET. Not too wet, not too dry, just right. It's Goldilocks. And you can measure it. It's a scientific measure. A second way to think about this, is like a percolation test. Where you dig a hole, fill it up with water, and watch it drain over time. The faster is drains, the more sand is in the soil, and the slower it drains, the more clay is in the soil. Or - based on the drainage rate it can also describe the soil compaction and soil structure, because the soil type is only one variable that will determine the drainage rate - and Field Capacity. Ok - got it? Field Capacity = perfectly Wet. Goldilocks wet. Now, here is where it get really fun, and where current manufactures have kind of missed the mark - in my opinion. In my opinion they have missed the mark because they forget to think about the user. Engineers know exactly what all of this means, and they know exactly how to set the sensors, and have almost 20years of experience, I know how to set sensors. However, the average knuckle dragger has no idea, and the first question they always ask, every time, is how to set the sensor. Let's talk about this. Field Capacity, allowable depletion, permanent wilting point, etc. can be confusing as hell. Here is my tip. If field capacity, IE Wet, equals Full, than full must equal 100%. The soil profile is a tank, and at field capacity, the tank is full. 100% This is where manufactures should set the calibration. Instead of displaying a percentage of volumetric soil moisture, they should allow the user to set the tank, and instead, display a % full. How much water is in the soil tank. Is it 100% full, 50% full, or empty. It doesn't really matter what the actual volumetric soil moisture percentage is. It maters more, what the percentage is relative to field capacity. let me give you an example. I get a phone call and the customers say, "hey Andy, my moisture sensor is reading 28.5%, what does that mean and how do I set the sensor?" My response - I have no freaking idea. Why? because I need more information. I need to know what field capacity is, before I can understand 28.5% Is this making sense now? Maybe 26% is field capacity, which would be 28.5% is saturation. Or, maybe field Capacity is 32%, which would mean the soil tank is 50% full. Every moisture reading must be compared to field capacity, of the same sensor. Not field capacity of another sensor, only field capacity of the same sensor. for this reason, I always recommend pouring a bucket of water over the sensor, or enough to actually saturate the sensor, than wait 24hrs, like a Percolation test, then take a reading and see what it is - or run a report remotely and look at the data. Write that number number down. That is your Baseline - pun intended!! My very general broad approach that works most of the time, is to take away 20% of the number, and use that as depletion. Now you know your tank size. Let's pretend 30% = Field Capacity or Full using my 20% depletion rule, dry would be what? if 10% of 30 is 3%, than 20% of 30 is 6%. Tank size = 6% So your tank size becomes 24% dry, 30% wet. That is what your working with. So, now that you understand, and if you don't listen to it again, I can explain how different soil types have different tank sizes. Clay soils hold more water. So field capacity of a clay soil will be higher. Lets say 33% Sandy soil hold less water. so Field Capacity of sandy soil will be lower, say 22% if we use my general rule of 20% depletion, 20% of a bigger number is a bigger tank. So the more clay in the soil, the larger the tank size, and the more sand in the soil, the smaller the tank size. And the smaller the tank, the more frequent it will need to be filled up. The larger the tank, the less frequent it will need to be filled up. If you have a 12 gallon gas tank, you'll fill it up more often than if you have a 20gallon gas tank. That's it. That's all there is to it, essentially. It can be so easy to way over think this, to over complicate this, and to miss the point. The point is that you must first identify Field Capacity, and that becomes your baaabaaba Baseline. And everything becomes relative to that. this is why, in my opinion, it is actually impossible to manually input the soil type into the ET Formula. Because it is essentially impossible to tell the soil type without sending it to a lab, and even the lab can't tell how compacted the soil is, or what the soil structure is. You can only determine the soil type by measuring field capacity with a soil moisture sensor. So wrapping this up. I believe that sensors will be the next revolution that we see in this industry, and as it relates to the soil, everything is relative to Field Capacity. Learn it. Understand it. Have a beer and think about it. Field Capacity, My Ass.

Welcome, folks! It's your favorite Nerd, Andy Humphrey, back on The Sprinkler Nerd Radio with another hilarious episode. This is episode #115, and this episode might sound a bit strange. Perhaps a bit robotic, because this is not me. This is not my voice. My name is Drop Bot and I am the voice clone of Andy. I am the Artificial Intelligence version of Mr. Andy Humphrey.

Andy has programmed me with 2 tasks for this episode. Task #1, is to teach you about evapotranspiration, and #2, is to tell you a short story about an irrigation contractor and a landscape contractor.

Before I play the intro, please remember that Andy is the creative genius behind the development of this episode. however, I and Drop Bot speaking to you, and I wrote this episode for you, to showcase the power of artificial intelligence, using Chat GPT, and voice cloning software.

Now it is time to play the Korny intro...

Coolness, Andy said this would be fun and I can't wait to talk about something that you might have heard of if you're in the industry or have a smart controller. And if you haven't, well, don't worry, we're going to break it down for you. The topic of today's episode is drumroll please evapotranspiration! Yeah, I know, it's a mouthful.

Basically, evapotranspiration, or e t for short, is the combination of two words: evaporation and transpiration. Now, before you start thinking it's a new dance move, let me tell you what it really is. Transpiration is the process by which plants consume water, and evaporation is just water evaporating from the surface of the ground. So when you add them together, you get evapotranspiration, which is the total water loss from the soil due to both of these processes.

Now, why is evapotranspiration important? Well, it determines the amount of water required to maintain healthy plants. So, in a perfect world, we would give our plants exactly the right amount of water they need, no more, no less. And E T is the scientific word used to describe that amount of water. Simple, right?

Now, the next question that pops up is how is E T calculated? And guess what, folks, there are four factors that are used to determine it. The first one is temperature. The warmer it is outside, the more water loss there will be due to evapotranspiration. The second one is solar radiation. The sunnier it is outside, the more water loss we'll have. Thirdly, humidity. The drier it is outside, the more water loss there will be due to both transpiration and evaporation. And last but not least, wind speed. The windier it is outside, the more water loss there will be.

Now, remember that E T is a variable factor that can change day-to-day, week-to-week, or month-to-month. However, there's something called a seasonal E T curve that we can follow to conserve water. In the spring and fall, we can match the E T curve of the season, which is the best time to save water. And in the summer, we might actually need to water more.

Now, hold onto your MP Rotators you Sprinkler Nerd, While E T is a useful tool for water budgeting and forecasting, it is not always the best option for real-time watering. This is because E T estimates are subject to a wide range of factors, including temperature, humidity, wind speed, solar radiation, and plant type, among others. As a result, it is difficult to accurately measure E T in real-time, particularly in changing weather conditions.

Another challenge with using E T for real-time watering is that it only provides an estimate of how much water is lost from the soil and plants, but it does not account for other factors that affect plant water needs. For example, soil moisture, plant growth stage, and root depth are critical factors that influence how much water a plant needs at a particular time. These factors can vary significantly within a field, making it challenging to use E T as a real-time irrigation scheduling tool.

Additionally, the use of E T for real-time watering does not consider the actual water availability in the soil. E T is a measure of the water demand from the atmosphere, and it assumes that the soil is always able to supply the required amount of water. In reality, soil moisture can vary significantly due to factors such as soil texture, compaction, and irrigation management. Therefore, relying solely on E T estimates for real-time watering can lead to over- or under-irrigation, resulting in water wastage or crop stress.

On the other hand, E T is a useful tool for water budgeting and forecasting. By estimating the water demand of crops over a period, water managers can develop an irrigation schedule that ensures adequate water supply while minimizing water loss through runoff or deep percolation. Moreover, E T estimates can help water managers to plan for future water demands and anticipate potential water shortages or droughts.

So, in my final expert opinion, while evapotranspiration is a fascinating and important scientific concept, it's not always the most user-friendly tool for the average gardener. And let's face it, if we wanted to deal with complicated calculations and scientific jargon, we'd become rocket scientists instead of gardeners.

Now for Part 2 of this episode. I'd like to share a short story that I wrote for you about two contractors...Bob and Joe...

Once upon a time, in a land where the grass was always greener, there was an irrigation contractor named Bob. Bob was the best in the business, or so he thought. One day, he was at Sprinkler Wholesale USA, picking up some supplies, when he ran into a landscape contractor named Joe. Joe had a reputation for being the best in the business too, and Bob couldn't resist striking up a conversation.

Hey, Joe.....

This week I had the privilege to speak with Lawrence Ying, founder, and CEO of GeoDrops.

Lawrence Ying is an engineer, dreamer, and the Founder and CEO of GeoDrops. Lawrence was one of the first twenty hardware engineers at Google, and has been a pioneer in reinventing how modern computer systems work in the Cloud era.

His engineering team consists of many senior engineers and lead designers from many of the top U.S. high-tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and more.

Lawrence and his team believe they can take the very best in artificial intelligence (A.I.), robotics, and user experience, to perhaps the least technologically advanced place in our lives: the backyard.

I have not used GeoDrops yet, so I need to be careful not to be so damn excited, however, if you know me, you know that I'm very opportunistic, and I do believe that the world has been waiting for someone like Lawrence to bring a product like GeoDrops to market.

My advice to you - even though you're not asking for it - is to visit GeoDrops.com, and join their Launch-Day Email List, so you can be notified as soon as the product is available, and if you are truly a Sprinkler Nerd, pre-order a GeoDrop so you can be the first to receive it.

Please enjoy this short discussion with Lawrence Ying.

In this episode, you will learn about the opportunity to find water leaks to reduce water waste with the potential to save millions of dollars annually. I am joined by Ben Slick, Senior Vice President of Business Development for HydroPoint, and Paul Bassett, Vice President of Water Efficiency for ENVOCORE.

This episode is the audio replay from a webinar hosted by HydroPoint Data Systems. To learn more about HydroPoint's Smart Water Management solutions, visit www.HydroPoint.com.

Today it is just me, I'd like to share a quote with you that opened up my mind a little bit, in a really good way, and inspired me to think about what I know, and how we should perhaps be a bit more opened minded sometimes... But before I share that with you, I'd like to tell you a story of self-reflection this week. For the past 7 days, I was in Honolulu Hawaii, on spring break with my family, and had the chance to catch up with 2 other sprinkler nerds, my good friend Paul Bassett and Dave Woods, both from ENVOCORE. They are working on a killer project at Pearl Harbor that I was fortunate to assist with, and it was great to see them both. Special shoutout to Dave Woods, for entertaining my wife such that she actually drank a beer. 2 beers. My wife doesn't drink beer, and we met Dave at a tiny microbrewery on the Island, and my wife actually drank beer. On the flight home, I was catching up on emails and remembered that I had been asked to be interviewed on the Scaling UP! H2O Podcast, and as part of the scheduling process I was asked to answer a series of questions, one of which was to write a short bio about myself and my business history. It was in this process of reviewing my past that I had a few moments of self-reflection that I typically don't allow time for. I asked myself a question, I don't know why, but it seemed like to right question to ask if I wanted to advise someone else and tell them about my business career. At first I wrote down a whole bunch of things, a ton of accomplishments, timeline, work, projects, etc. Then I reflected again, and asked myself how I could simplify this - if someone were to ask me for advice, about what got me where I am, I'm certainly not going to rattle off all of this goobliguck to them, TMI!.....then I thought, is there something specific that ties my different successes together. And I encourage you to ask yourself this same question - what makes you, you? What makes you successful at what you do? What got you where you are? I boiled it down to 2 specific traits, or philosophies, or whatever you want to call it. #1 Creativity #2 Curiosity That is pretty much how I got here. Got here talking to you, and that is how I'm going to get where I want to go. This will be different for you, and I encourage you to spend time reflecting on this from your own life, and if you have never had a thought like this before, give it a try, it may seem awkward weird, but I can tell you that the benefits will start to compound over time. So now, let's transition into the quote of the week... I heard this quote while listening to the Tim Ferris Show, and I'll plug that again, it is a great podcast for expanding your mind, I highly recommend it. Tim mentioned this quote, and he couldn't recall the exact phrasing, so I looked it up. The quote is this: "Half of what we are going to teach you is wrong, and the other half is right. Our problem is that we don't know which half is which". This quote was from Dr. Charles Burwell, Dean of Harvard Medical School from 193-1949. It resonated with me, partially because of my passion for curiosity and creativity, but also because this is all just a big experiment. Seriously, watering plants is just a big experiment, and I think that it is important to remind ourselves that what we think we know maybe be correct, and it also may be incorrect. And it could be correct today, in 2023, and it could also be incorrect in 2028. Everything is subject to both change and relevance to the information provided at the time which may lead to the theory being correct or incorrect. Just think about sprinklers. How we water the landscape today, is different than how we watered the landscape in 1975. The tools we use are different. The scheduling formulas are different. The automation is different. And I say this to give you permission to keep an open mind. You do not need to be an expert who has all the answers, instead, I encourage you to be an expert that continuously questions what you know, in constant pursuit of perhaps a better way of doing it. That's it. 50% of what you know is right, you just know which 50%. That's it, my friends, I encourage you to stay curious, ask questions, try something new, learn, and repeat. Have an amazing weekend.

In this episode, Andy is joined by Brad Krause. Brad is the President and Owner (former) of Service Professor. Service Professor is a 40-year-old home services company based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that grew from a small electrical company to one of the largest home service repair companies in Michigan.

You will learn how brad Brad decided to exit the business by selling the business to a private equity firm, turning Service Professor into a "platform" model now used to acquire other home service businesses.

In this episode, Andy talks with the President of Smart Rain, Dan Hymas, about their SmartController™ platform, what makes it unique, how contractors can partner with Smart Rain, and why Smart Rain may be the last controller you ever need to buy.

About Smart Rain:

Smart Rain was founded in 2012 with a mission to put a stop to overwatering on commercial properties. Not only does this protect our planet's freshwater, but it also helps property managers save money and time on water system management.

Smart irrigation systems are the most efficient way to prevent overwatering, as they monitor water usage and shut off lines when no more water is needed. When we started our company, we knew that we needed to create advanced smart irrigation technology that was backed by a supportive team and increased irrigation transparency. With that mission in mind, we created the centralized SmartController™ and the Smart Rain mobile application.

In just under a decade of business, Smart Rain saved their customers over one billion gallons of water, $3 million on water bills, and hundreds of thousands of hours of labor.

What is Helium? The Helium Network is the world's largest and fastest-growing wireless network in history, with over 613,000 Hotspots, in over 47,000 cities, across 163 countries. Learn more at www.Helium.com

• The largest contiguous wireless network in the world provides extensive coverage, reducing the need to purchase and manage additional infrastructure

• Highly competitive connectivity costs enable initiatives to scale — the average sensor costs only $1.05 per year (for a sensor sending data every 5 minutes)

• Accessible and easy to use with compatible off-the-shelf LoRaWan devices

• Built on open source standards, increasing access to open source projects that attract companies to build and/or utilize smart devices and avoid issues such as vendor lock-in and high hardware costs

Today I have one statement that I want to remind you of, it could be the most important tool in your tool bag, the one thing you should always remind yourself of, and perhaps the single most important concept for your success... You Are The Value Remember that. Always funnel the value through you. Value is not the products you sell. Value is not the products you install. You are the value. What is the value? Is it Hunter versus Rain Bird? No People buy the value that you offer, not the products that you sell. Be curious and discover what this value needs to be.