There once was a time when glancing around at the natural beauty of plants and wildlife was a common occurrence. Live plants used to be an accessory on nearly every surface of one’s home. Today though, we have replaced flowers and plants with appliances, computers and chargers. People nowadays are convinced that they simply don’t have time to care for live plants and to keep them healthy. Biome, a system that uses an iPad to manage a real honest to god terrarium, is setting out to change all of that.
Samuel Wilkinson created the Biome to allow would be botanists to remotely tend to their plants from nearly anywhere via a native app installed onto the user’s iPad. Though still merely a prototype now, the app would be capable of regulating your plant’s water levels as well as incoming nutrients.
The housing itself is even being designed to make sunlight optional, with full spectrum LEDs providing all of the necessary rays to keep plants happy.
Wilkinson is quick to point out that this isn’t likely to convince active gardeners to start remotely tending to their crops, but for beginners who simply want to get started without too much face to face time with their plants, this system may be ideal. Alternatively, plants that require a really specific ecosystem could thrive anywhere with this system’s ability to adjust the environment autonomously.
We have a feeling Wilkinson just got finished watching Idiocracy when he decided to create the Biome and simply wanted to ensure that as we trend downward in common sense as a population, we don’t start feeding our plant life Brawndo. Contrary to discussion, it doesn’t have what plants crave.
Samuel Wilkinson: Biome
Source: FastCoDesign
