The future of smart irrigation will see human expertise partnered with artificial intelligence and machine learning to reduce water and labour waste and ensure landscapes remain sustainably beautiful.

That’s the message from a newly unveiled roadmap from California-based smart irrigation company Calsense. The announcement provides a multi-phase vision for its irrigation technology over the coming years. The initiative is designed to drive new levels of water and labour conservation to meet the needs of a changing climate and the weather effects that brings, as well as tackling ongoing challenges related to labour shortages.

“At Calsense, we have nearly 40 years of smart irrigation experience,” said Calsense senior product manager Josh Lehman. “This new vision for smart irrigation allies that unparalleled industry understanding with cutting edge technology to make the process of irrigation increasingly efficient and, by extension, sustainable.”

The roadmap outlines seven stages in the advancement of irrigation, from simple timers through to predictive analytics that will enable the remedying of system issues before they become major problems.

Part of this is harnessing the power of innovations in natural language and generative AI to create intuitive experiences, which will help drive adoption of smarter technologies. These advancements should also help users solve problems faster and more efficiently using industry best practices.

“The key here is that the artificial intelligence itself is built on real-world human expertise and Calsense’s decades of irrigation knowledge,” Lehman said. “Further down the line, we’ll introduce machine learning-based predictive analytics that will provide users with truly meaningful, actionable insights into the way their system is performing.”

The seven phases Calsense outlines in its roadmap also include today’s conventional smart irrigation, which uses data such as weather, soil, topography and plant type to determine the optimum irrigation schedule, and as-a-service pricing, as exemplified by Calsense’s IMaaS irrigation management-as-a-service offering. IMaaS lets users deploy full-scale smart irrigation systems while avoiding capital expenditure. Instead, they pay a fixed price for their system annually for ten years.

The roadmap further includes IoT-first architecture, the implementation of human factors-based user experience interfaces, and the enablement of location-based asset management of irrigation and associated equipment.

“This vision is centred around the enhancement of the customer experience,” Lehman said. “That was the impetus for our newly launched Calsense customer innovation council, and input from the innovation council sessions has been intrinsic to the development of this roadmap. It’s been driven by our incredibly talented and diverse team at Calsense. We’re rightfully renowned for our commitment to supporting our customers, and with this roadmap in place we’re excited to journey alongside them into a more efficient and sustainable future.”

Calsense is a part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense programme for promoting water efficient products and services. For 37 years, the company has contributed to providing a sustainable future by developing water resource management tools and strategies, directly incorporating input from its customers.

Calsense helps companies conserve water, manage labour and save money through smart irrigation. The company’s technology and support bridge the gap between irrigation designer, installer, landscape maintainer and water manager to provide the support needed at each phase of a project.