GenetixBayEST. 2009
Jardin · the grow system · in development

Set it. Check in. Tell it what you see. It adjusts.

A near-autonomous high-pressure aeroponics system with deep water culture support, built from small controller nodes and a local hub, around hardware already on the bench: pH and EC probes, temperature and humidity sensors, peristaltic dosers, pumps, solenoids, flow meters and load cells.

100 psiAccumulator-fed misting, two zones
±0.5 gEvery dose verified by weight
24 h+Misting on battery during a power cut
0 V mainsInside anything we design
14 stylesFrom high-pressure mist to living soil
Concept render of the Jardin aeroponics kit: root chamber, reservoir on a scale, dosing bay, pressure tank and hub

Concept render, not a product photo. Today Jardin is a breadboard and bench firmware; see the bench.

The mix station · one batch, many tents

Fresh water in. The right feed out to every tent.

For bigger rooms the mixing moves out of the tent. One station fills, doses, stirs and checks a batch, then a manifold sends it to each tent on its own valve, and runoff goes to waste. Watch one cycle run.

  1. FillFresh water in, counted by the flow meter and the scale.
  2. DoseStock jugs dose one at a time, calcium first, each checked in grams.
  3. MixCirculate so nothing meets at stock strength.
  4. SettleLet the probes settle before anything is trusted.
  5. VerifyEC must match the prediction, pH in band, weight adds up. Or it stops.
  6. DeliverThe manifold opens one tent at a time, each on its own recipe.
  7. Drain and flushRunoff goes to waste, lines get a plain-water flush.
Mix-station topology · illustrative
Mix station: fresh water is metered into a mix tank on load cells; four stock jugs dose into it; it is stirred, allowed to settle and checked at a verify gate for EC, pH and weight; then a manifold with one valve per tent sends the batch to three tents, and runoff goes to waste or a drain, with a plain-water flush line. Fresh waterRO or tapmetered by flow flush line ABCpH− Mix tankon load cells · stirred Verify gateEC + pH + weight Manifold · one valve per tent Tent 1own recipeTent 2own recipeTent 3own recipe Wasteor drain
Water and feedDosingRunoff and flushChecks
The system · how it fits

The hub plans. The nodes execute.

Misting never depends on the hub, the Wi-Fi or the cloud. If the hub dies, the Root node keeps misting on its last 24-hour plan, on battery if it has to.

System diagram: cloud and app connect to the hub; the hub talks over the local network to the Climate node and the Root node; the Root node drives the high-pressure loop from reservoir through pump, filter, accumulator and solenoids to the misting chamber, with dosers on a stock-bottle scale and load cells under the reservoir. Cloud + apprecipes · journal Hub · local computermessage bus · plan compilercamera jobs · local UIworks offline Climate nodeair temp + RH · leaf IR0–10 V · smart plugs Cameracanopy · sticky traps Root nodeisolated pH / EC · 12 MOSFET channelscurrent sense · 24-bit load-cell ADCmist scheduler · dose supervisor Safety layer (hardware)max-on timers · leak/float interlockrelief valve 120 psi · battery UPS Stock bottlesA · B · pH↓ on a scale 4 peristaltic dosersverified by weight Reservoir 60 L on 4 load cellspH · EC · water temp · floats · leaktop-off valve · drain pump · chiller plug Pump 100 psi → 5 µm filter → accumulator 2 galpressure transducer · mechanical switch · flow meter Root chamber 100 L · 4 sites2 solenoid zones · 6 anti-drip nozzleschamber RH (proof of mist) · lifeboat poolgravity drain back to reservoir
Local network / controlWater and nutrient flowWiringHardware safety
Every way you grow · 14 systems, one Root

Aeroponics, water, coco or dirt. Same brain.

One controller, one app, one journal. Switch the root mode between grows, plug in the matching sensors, and Jardin picks up the right ones on its own.

14 systems

Flood and drain

Floods a table to the standpipe on a schedule, drains back by gravity.

Root zone
Inert media on a table
If a pump dies
Days (media holds water)
Automation
Level 3

Drip, recirculating

Measured shots through emitters; runoff returns and is watched for EC drift.

Root zone
Coco, rockwool, clay
If a pump dies
12–36 h
Automation
Level 3

Drip to waste + crop steering

Dryback-driven P1/P2/P3 shots from substrate VWC and EC; fresh batch every few days.

Root zone
Coco, rockwool
If a pump dies
12–36 h
Automation
Level 2 → 3 after 10 steered grows

Soak, bottom-water, wick

Fills the tray to a level, dwells, drains or holds. Gentle and soil-friendly.

Root zone
Pots in a tray
If a pump dies
Days
Automation
Level 3

DWC and RDWC

Air pump proof-of-life by power draw, chiller, per-bucket floats, pH and EC hold.

Root zone
Roots in oxygenated water
If a pump dies
2–12 h (air)
Automation
Level 3

NFT

A thin film along sloped channels; return flow is the proof the film exists. Backup pump failover.

Root zone
Bare roots in channels
If a pump dies
1–3 h
Automation
Level 3

Low-pressure aero

Spray cycles with a chamber humidity watchdog; daily plain-water flush for the sprayers.

Root zone
Spray chamber
If a pump dies
1–4 h
Automation
Level 3

High-pressure aero

80–100 psi bursts, pressure decay per zone, battery-backed misting and a lifeboat pool.

Root zone
Mist chamber
If a pump dies
Tens of minutes
Automation
Level 3 with battery

Fogponics

Ultrasonic fog as a humidity top-up beside LPA, HPA or NFT, and in cloning domes.

Root zone
Fog chamber
If a pump dies
Hours
Automation
Supplement only

Kratky

No pump at all. Jardin watches pH, EC, level and climate and tells you when to act.

Root zone
Static reservoir
If a pump dies
n/a
Automation
Level 0 · monitor

Coco

Hydro-like and fast-drying; buffer check in week one, then dryback steering.

Root zone
Any irrigation
If a pump dies
12–36 h
Automation
Level 3

Rockwool

Inert and unbuffered; slab EC is the lever, so a VWC/EC probe is strongly recommended.

Root zone
Any irrigation
If a pump dies
24–48 h
Automation
Level 3

Soil, bottled feed

Moisture-led watering with long dry-downs and dilute feed. Dosing caps halve.

Root zone
Buffered, biological
If a pump dies
Days
Automation
Level 2

Living soil

Water only. Dosing is switched off; moisture, climate, photos and pest watch stay on.

Root zone
No-till, microbial
If a pump dies
Days
Automation
Level 3 (water only)

"If a pump dies" is how long roots survive when the irrigation actuator fails at lights-on in a warm room; rough field estimates we'll check on the bench. Automation levels: 0 monitor, 1 suggest, 2 act with approval, 3 act within recipe bounds.

Plug in and go

Labelled locking ports on the node. Plug a sensor in and Jardin identifies it by its address or an ID resistor in the cable, then shows it in the app.

PROBE 1–2I²C 1–21-WIREFLOW 1–2WEIGHTSOIL 1–4RS-485PWM / 0–10 V 1–412 V OUT 1–8
Jardin Dose · four tiers, one firmware

Control every salt. Pick how many.

Every salt carries two ions, so element control is a solver over salts, not a jug per element. More channels widen what the solver can hit, at the cost of tubes, calibration and ways to go wrong. Same Root firmware on every tier.

Standard

The default for every Jardin kit.

Stock jugs sit on load cells; dashed jugs are optional channels.

5 channels: A, B, C, pH Down, and pH Up (optional, off by default).

Ratio control
Continuous N:P:K:Ca:Mg by changing the A:B:C ratio every day. No bottle swap at flip.
Accuracy, fresh batch
±5 % on N, P, K, Ca and Mg in a fresh batch; sulfur is a by-product.
Pumps and verification
DC peristaltic, verified by weight.
Who it's for
The default for every Jardin kit.
Failure risk
Low to medium: three stocks, and the C jug is the one people mix up.

pH Down only, by default. Plants feeding on nitrate push pH up as they drink, typically 0.1–0.4 a day in a small reservoir, so every tier ships with acid and no base. pH Up is an optional channel the recipe switches on for ammonium-heavy feeds, fresh coco or organic inputs, with a day cap one third of pH Down's.

Per-element dosing · how the solver works

From a recipe to grams in the tank, checked twice.

The grower sets element targets. Jardin turns them into millilitres of each stock, doses in a safe order, waits for the mix, then proves it: by weight on every jug and by EC against its own prediction.

  1. Salts as vectors

    Each stock is a column of mg per mL: calcium nitrate pushes Ca and N together, MKP pushes P and K.

  2. Solver

    A small least-squares problem finds the mL of each stock that lands closest to the recipe, inside every safety ceiling.

  3. Dose order

    Calcium first into clean water at one inlet; phosphate and sulfate later at the other. They never meet concentrated.

  4. Mix and settle

    Circulate three reservoir turnovers after calcium, five minutes between the rest, then let the probe settle.

  5. Verified by weight

    Every jug sits on a load cell. The model books grams delivered, not what the pump was told, and EC must match the prediction.

Try it · illustrative demo, not a feed chart

Set the targets

Targets in mg/L for a fresh 60 L RO reservoir with Precision-tier stocks. Sulfur ceiling 90 mg/L.

160 mg/L
45 mg/L
190 mg/L
140 mg/L
50 mg/L

Predicted EC ≈ 1.7 mS/cm

What it doses
Calcium nitrate0 mL
Potassium nitrate0 mL
MKP0 mL
Magnesium sulfate0 mL
Potassium sulfate0 mL
What you get
N
––
P
––
K
––
Ca
––
Mg
––
S
––
  • Move a slider to see the trade-offs.

Simplified sequential solve for illustration: the real solver is a bounded least-squares problem over 13 elements with per-element ceilings, a total-EC ceiling and per-channel caps, using each lot's measured analysis. Coefficients are engineering estimates pending agronomist review.

  1. 0 · WaterFill to a mass target; read EC, pH, temperature.
  2. 1 · Pre-acidifyOnly if tap alkalinity is high; wait 10 min.
  3. 2 · Calcium nitrateInlet A, into clean water; 3 turnovers.
  4. 3 · KNO₃ → MKP → MgSO₄ → K₂SO₄Inlet B, 5 min apart.
  5. 4 · Micros, then ironChelates last, at pH 5.5–6.3.
  6. 5 · EC gateMeasured vs predicted within ±15 %, or stop.
  7. 6 · pH trim≤ 2 mL steps, 10–15 min settle.
Knowing what's in the tank · mass balance

EC is one number. We track thirteen.

Jardin keeps a running estimate of every element in the reservoir, with an honest error bar, from what it dosed by weight, what the plants drank and what drained away. A lab test resets it. When the estimate stops being trustworthy, it proposes a fresh batch.

Reservoir mass balance: dosed salts by weight and top-off water flow in; plant uptake and drain flow out; the model tracks each ion. Reservoir · modelled ions 13 elements + volume, each with an error bar Dosed, by weightgrams per jug, logged Top-off watercarries the tap profile Plant uptakeEC tells the total, the stageprofile splits it by element Drain · runoffmeasured by mass ions(t+1) = ions + dosed − uptake − drain
Error bars that grow, then reset Model uncertainty on nitrogen grows each day and snaps back to narrow after a lab test on day 12. lab test day 0day 21 N estimate ± 1σ
Lab-test recalibration

Upload a nutrient-solution panel from an agricultural lab. The parser reads it, the model snaps to the measured values and refits the plant's uptake profile for that grow. Recommended every 2–3 weeks on Precision and Lab tiers; tap users add a water-source profile every six months.

When it dumps the reservoir

Any one trigger proposes a refresh; on Level 2 and up it schedules itself after a two-hour veto window.

Accumulationtop-off ≥ 100 % of volume (HPA 150 %)

Ions the plant doesn't take build up while EC still reads fine.

Uncertainty1σ on N, K or Ca > 25 %

The model no longer knows what it is holding.

Drift signaturepH up, EC down for 3 days

Selective uptake has pulled the ratio far from the recipe.

Age14 days DWC · 10 days HPA

Extendable to 28 with a lab result in the last 7 days.

Sanitationwater > 24 °C for 48 h

Or slime flagged on a root photo. Pathogen risk, not chemistry.

The feedback loop · you talk, it adjusts

What happens when you type "the leaves look pale".

The grower talks like a grower. The system answers with readings, one small change, and a way out.

1 · YOU TYPE

Lower leaves yellowing, new growth looks pale, mist seems weaker than last week.

2 · STRUCTURED
chlorosis_lower   0.8
chlorosis_new     0.7
mist_weak         0.6

Anything outside the vocabulary is logged, never acted on.

3 · CORROBORATED

Zone 2 pressure drop per burst fell 22% vs the 7-day baseline. pH has sat at 6.3 for two days. EC is stable.

4 · PROPOSED
ph_target  -0.2  (3 days, auto-revert)
flush zone 2 now

One variable, inside the recipe band. Uncorroborated notes become a suggested check.

5 · YOU DECIDE

Greenleaf explains it with the readings and how many similar grows saw the same thing. Approve or keep. The outcome is tracked for three scans.

Under the hood · five layers

Five layers. Greenleaf never touches a setpoint.

Fast loops are deterministic firmware. Photos and typed feedback become structured observations; a human-written rule table turns them into small, bounded, time-limited changes.

L0
Safetynode hardware + top-priority task · 100 ms

Interlocks, max-on timers, pressure ceiling, level, leak, current limits, battery load shedding.

no AI
L1
Controlnode firmware · 1–30 s

Mist scheduler, pressure loop, pH and EC dose-mix-settle-measure, climate and VPD, chiller, air-pump watchdog.

no AI
L2
Recipehub · daily

Compiles today's strain recipe (GB-RCP) into a 24-hour plan per node: light, VPD band, EC curve, mist timing, stage changes.

statistics
L3
Perceptionhub + cloud · per photo or message

Canopy, root and sticky-trap photos plus the grower's typed notes become observations from a fixed vocabulary.

vision + language
L4
Proposalcloud · deterministic

Observations that sensor data corroborates become one-variable changes inside recipe limits, with auto-revert and approval routing.

rules
Fail-safes · planned for, not hoped for

In HPA a dead pump costs the crop in hours. Plan for it.

Every row below becomes a bench fault-injection test before any unit leaves the building.

FailureHow we detect itWhat the system does
Pump diesNo current, refill never completes, pressure under cut-in for 90 sMist from the accumulator (6–10 bursts), then lifeboat mode; alert
Pump won't stopPump on >180 s, pressure never reaches cut-outHardware timer cuts it; relief valve caps pressure
Solenoid stuck closedNormal current, no pressure drop on burst, chamber RH fallingOther zone at double rate, flush, lifeboat if RH stays low
Nozzle clogPer-zone pressure drop down 25% (partial) or 60% (full)Longer bursts up to +50%, flush, spare ordered, alert
Power cutPSU senseBattery runs the Root node, pump and lifeboat for 24 h+; dosing paused
Wi-Fi or hub lostMissed heartbeatsNode runs its last 24 h plan; dosing stops after 6 h; misting never stops
Probe driftCalibration slope, drift without dosing, stuck valuesHalf dose caps, no AI proposals on pH, calibration reminder
Acid overdoseWeight delivered over cap, pH under 5.2Hardware timer limits runs; channel locked; plain-water dilution
Leak or overflowLeak pad, high float, weight falling with no eventHardware interlock drops the pump rail; loud alarm; manual reset
Root rot riskReturn water over 24 °C, pH/EC drift signature, root photosChiller on, mist tightened, UV-C if fitted, sanitation guide

Safety rules we don't bend

  1. No mains inside anything we design.Low-voltage DC to every pump, valve and doser. Lights and fans switch through listed plugs.
  2. Misting never waits for the network.The node keeps its last 24-hour plan, on battery if it has to.
  3. Hardware gets the last word.Leak pads and floats cut the pump rail directly; max-on timers and a relief valve back up the firmware.
  4. Normally-off outputs.Outputs start latched off, so a reboot or a dead board leaves everything off.
  5. Acid is capped twice.Small steps, a daily cap, weight verification and a low-pH lockout.
  6. Electronics above the water line.Sealed boxes, cable glands pointing down, a drip loop on every cable.
Sensors · what it watches

Built around what's already on the bench.

Most of these are already wired up on the bench. Everything else is added only where it earns its place.

SensorWhereWhat it does in this design
pH probeRootpH control and drift detection; isolated front-end so EC can't corrupt it
EC / PPM probeRootEC control, dose-effect check, HPA return EC; shows mS/cm and both ppm scales
Water tempRootChiller control, EC compensation; second probe on the return line spots chamber heat
Air temp / RHClimate, chamberVPD and mould control; chamber RH ≥ 95% is the proof that misting works
Flow meterPump lineLitres per refill = litres delivered; a slow refill means a worn pump or clogged filter
Load cellsReservoir, stock bottlesWater use, transpiration, leak detection, automatic reservoir changes, every dose verified in grams, bottle-empty 48 h ahead
Peristaltic dosers, pumps, solenoidsRootA, B, pH up, pH down; HPA pump; mist zones; top-off and drain
Pressure transducer 0–150 psiHPA linePump control, per-zone burst volume by pressure decay, clog and leak detection
Leaf IR thermometerClimateLeaf VPD instead of air VPD; the biggest accuracy gain for the effort
Floats and leak padsRootHard interlocks that cut the pump rail in hardware
CameraHubCanopy scans, sticky-trap counts, time-lapse; NoIR root camera on Pro
CO₂, DO, ORP, true PARAdd-on / ProOnly where they pay for themselves: sealed rooms, RDWC, sterile reservoirs
Nutrients and pests · mixed by weight

Mixed by weight. Pests watched, not sprayed.

A three-part mineral line designed for nozzles, mixed and verified on the stock-bottle scale. Pest control means detection, climate and guidance; anything sprayed stays human and unregistered products stay out of the box.

How a reservoir gets made

  1. The app walks you through 100× stocks on the scale: "Add calcium nitrate until it reads 236 g."
  2. Top-off fills the reservoir to a weight target (60 kg).
  3. A, B and C are dosed by weight to the recipe's EC; the ratio changes daily, so no bottle swap at flip.
  4. pH is trimmed last; EC verified; the batch is logged as a mix record.
  5. Small daily corrections follow the same check. Bottles running low are flagged 48 h ahead, with a one-tap reorder.

Pest control: what's really automated

  • Automated: sticky-trap counts from the camera, with alerts on a 3× weekly rise
  • Automated: mould and mildew pressure via night RH and dew-point margin, fan proof-of-life
  • Automated: reservoir sanitation with a listed inline UV-C unit, interlocked to flow
  • Scheduled: biologicals and beneficial insects as reminders with sourcing
  • Human: spraying, inspecting under leaves, quarantine, disposal
  • Never: ozone in the room, or any pesticide claim
The ecosystem

Lights and fans that talk to the brain.

Works today with standard gear: common LED drivers dim over 0–10 V, and EC fans take 0–10 V or PWM. Next comes our own hardware, built on the same controller platform.

Now

Any 0–10 V light or fan

Jardin's PWM-to-0–10 V outputs dim standard LED drivers and EC fans, with sunrise and sunset ramps and VPD-driven fan speed. Wall-socket devices run through listed smart plugs.

Next · Jardin Link

A wireless dimmer puck

A small wireless module that plugs into any driver's DIM port or fan's control input and joins the Jardin hub over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. No wires across the tent. Sold on its own, too.

Later · Jardin Light

Our own fixture

Quantum boards built to our spec, a quality LED driver, Jardin Link built in. Spectrum and intensity set by the strain recipe, day by day.

Jardin Light · concept · tap the channels

A light that reads the recipe.

The goal: our own fixture, built to our spectrum by an experienced fixture maker, with the Jardin Link inside. Four independently dimmable channels follow the strain recipe day by day: sunrise and sunset ramps, a daily light target, far-red at the end of the day, UV-A in late flower.

Concept Concept render of Jardin Light 660: six slim aluminium bars on a folding frame, with the light pool and spectrum below for the channels that are on. JARDIN LINK 380 nm 780 nm SPECTRUM BY CHANNEL
Channels · tap to switch
660 Wat the wall, fan-less bars
≈ 2.8µmol/J target efficacy
1.2 × 1.2 mflower footprint
4 channelseach 0–100 %
Link insideruns even with the light off

Bars derate at 85 °C and shut down at 95 °C. UV-A is capped to a daily dose and pauses when someone is in the room. First comes the Link on its own, for the lights growers already own.

Hobbyist to commercial · one platform

One tent today. A facility on the same firmware.

Site, room, zone, table, plant: every device and recipe lives in the same tree, so the controller that runs a closet runs a licensed room. Commercial adds wiring that survives 500 m of wet, noisy floor, a hot-standby hub, roles and an audit trail.

  1. 01 · One tent

    Hobbyist

    Brain + Root, Wi-Fi to the hub, smart plugs for lights and fans. Levels 0–3, recipes, auto-reorder.

    • Recipes, journal auto-entries and reorder reminders
    • Local-first: the room keeps its plan offline
  2. 02 · Multi-room

    Caregiver · micro

    Up to four rooms, crop steering, lab-upload recalibration, DO and ORP, API, SOPs and five users.

    • Precision or Lab dosing tiers
    • Substrate probes over RS-485
  3. 03 · Facility

    Commercial

    Unlimited users with roles, Modbus gateway to existing climate and fertigation gear, hot-standby hub, compliance exports and an SLA.

    • Up to 16 nodes per hub; 4–12 zones a room
    • Room target: 99.99 % "keeps its plan"
Crop steering

Shape the plant with water

LeverVegetativeGenerative
First shot after lights-on0.5–1.5 h2–3 h
Overnight dryback10–15 %20–35 %
Input EC1.8–2.42.4–3.2

Unlocked at Level 3 only after 10 logged steered grows on that substrate and genetic. Ranges are tuned per site.

Cost and energy per gram

Every input metered

cost/g = (power + nutrients + water + consumables + labour + equipment + rent) ÷ dry grams

Plugs and lights report kWh, every dose is weighed, labour hours come from completed SOPs. Reports grams per kWh, per m², per litre and per gram of salt, with lights and HVAC separated.

SOPs and audit trail

Who changed what, and when

  • Task templates per stage with checklists, photos, required readings and e-signature
  • Every setpoint, dose, alarm and calibration is an append-only event with its actor
  • Overdue calibration puts a zone in "uncalibrated" and blocks Level 3
  • CSV and PDF exports per room and date range
Compliance integrations

Data for the licensee's own reporting

  • US state seed-to-sale tracking: plant tags, phase changes, harvest weights, waste
  • Health Canada monthly reporting data, generated for the licence holder to submit
  • Read-only sync first; writes only with explicit confirmation
Planned
Challenges · named early

Sixteen hard problems, and our answer to each.

The things that sink grow-controller companies are rarely the clever parts. They are drift, water near electricity, bad updates, offline rooms and mixed-up jugs. Here is each one and what we are doing about it.

01Sensor drift and calibration

pH probes drift 0.1–0.3 a week, EC probes foul, and a controller chasing a bad number does damage.

How we handle it: Calibration intervals are enforced, a probe-suspect mode halves dose caps and blocks Level 3, weighed doses bound the damage, and replacement probes ship on age.

02Water and electricity in a home

Reservoirs, acid and pumps sit next to mains-powered lights and fans, often in a bedroom.

How we handle it: No mains in anything we design: listed power supplies and plugs only, low voltage everywhere, leak pads on a hardware interlock, coated boards, diluted acid and drip trays.

03Data privacy

Grow data is sensitive, and photos can carry location.

How we handle it: Location stripped on the device, region stored at state level only, consent per grow, full export and deletion, encryption at rest, and the room runs with sync off.

04Fake and duplicate genetics

The same seed sells under five names, and five seeds under one.

How we handle it: GB-IDs separate a verified account from verified genetics, every lineage link shows its evidence level, and duplicates are detected on name, breeder and parentage.

05Moderation at scale

Spam, scams and illegal listings grow faster than the moderator team.

How we handle it: Contribution-based reputation, fast triage with a human on anything uncertain, report and appeal flows, rate limits and a verified-breeder programme.

06Certification

Emissions with long sensor cables, pressure parts, a battery in the box, and a fixture listing.

How we handle it: Pre-certified radio modules, low-voltage design, emissions pre-scans at two board revisions, and the fixture listed through its maker's existing certification.

07Firmware updates in the field

A bad update on a dosing node is a lost crop.

How we handle it: Signed A/B images with automatic rollback, staged rollout 1 → 10 → 100 %, never during a dose, a mist or on battery, and a tested remote downgrade switch.

08Offline operation

Grow tents are metal-lined and the internet drops.

How we handle it: Nodes hold 24-hour plans, relay heartbeats to each other, the hub serves a local UI, and data syncs when the connection returns.

09Water chemistry varies by source

Tap water carries 20–200 mg/L alkalinity, calcium, magnesium and sometimes boron; RO has no buffer at all.

How we handle it: A water profile at onboarding feeds the solver, alkalinity is pre-acidified, RO gets a buffer, and a changed EC at fill raises a 'your tap water changed' alert.

10Simple for beginners, deep for experts

The same product must hide 13 element targets from one person and show them to another.

How we handle it: Automation levels gate what it can do; Starter users see recipe strength, Precision users the element table, and every number has a plain-language card.

11Stock solution integrity

Wrong jug, weak mix, crystals in a cold room, iron breaking down in light.

How we handle it: QR-bound jugs, refill detection by weight, an EC fingerprint dose after every refill, a cold-temperature lock and an opaque iron jug.

12Proving dosing is safe

'Software dosed acid into my reservoir' is a headline.

How we handle it: A hardware timer on the acid channel, diluted acid, 2 mL steps, weight verification, a pH 5.2 lockout, and published fault-injection results.

13Humidity and corrosion

Rooms at 90 % humidity kill unprotected boards within a year.

How we handle it: Conformal coating, sealed boxes with downward cable glands, gold-plated connectors, membrane-capped sensors, and the hub and power supply outside the tent.

14Smart-plug dependence

A plug's firmware update can break local control overnight.

How we handle it: One listed plug with a local interface, stock bought ahead, every plug firmware tested before it reaches growers, and a listed relay box for Pro.

15Clock and photoperiod integrity

A clock jump during flower can push a plant back into veg.

How we handle it: Network time checked against the real-time clock, nodes follow their own clock, large jumps need confirmation, and every lights event is logged.

16Heat from the hardware itself

Drivers and pumps warm small tents.

How we handle it: Driver plates mount outside the tent, pump duty is logged, and the climate loop counts fixture power as a heat source.

Why now · the work behind it

Years on the bench. Now the parts caught up.

Built by a grower who kept rebuilding the same system until it worked, at the moment sensors, boards and tooling became cheap enough for a small team to ship it.

The thing that changed is not an idea. The parts finally caught up.

The founder has spent years growing, building, breaking and rebuilding this system. The first GenetixBay existed before the market did; the grow controllers that followed were either expensive and closed or cheap and dumb.

Today the hardware that used to be lab equipment is the size of a grain of rice and costs very little. LED fixtures have doubled in efficacy in a decade and dim over a two-wire interface any small board can drive. Firmware frameworks ship with secure boot, signed updates and real-time scheduling as standard. Hubs run their services in containers that update themselves, and storing millions of sensor readings and serving them to a phone is a solved problem.

The law moved too: home growing is legal across most of Canada and a large share of US states. A small team with hands-on experience, a bench of working hardware and these tools can now build what used to take a company. That window will not stay open long.

Lab geara pH and EC dosing controller ten years ago, doing one job
Rice-sizedthe microcontroller in a Jardin node, certified radio included
0.1 gwhat a 24-bit converter can resolve when it weighs a dose
Trichomeswhat a small camera module is now sharp enough to count
One boardruns the hub's database and services
2 weeksfor custom circuit boards to come back from the factory
Founding Members · first in line

Be first to grow with it.

Founding Members get first access to the community, the archive and the journal, then the Jardin beta. Follow every step in the lab notes.