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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

farmbot

FarmBot Launches Two New Robotics Kits to Give Anyone an (Automated) Green Thumb

The idea of growing my own fruits and vegetables is appealing, but the reality of that ever happening is pretty slim. I just don’t have the know-how or the patience to set up and manage a garden properly. But FarmBot, the startup that sells home gardening robot kits, could change all that as the company announced today the launch of its new Express and Express XL robots, and placed them on pre-sale for the month of July.

The FarmBot is a cartesian coordinate robot that sits on top of your raised garden. According to the company, each kit comes 95 percent pre-assembled, and should only take an hour to set up. Once that’s done, FarmBot’s software lets you drag-and-drop to map out where you want to plant your different vegetables and fruits. Then FarmBot will sow the seeds, monitor them through its on-board camera, water them properly, and even spot and remove weeds. As is par for the course these days, all of this activity can be tracked via mobile app on your phone.

The new FarmBot models won’t ship until November, but the company has put them on pre-order sale for the month of July. The Express (1.2 metes by 3 meters) will set you back $1,500 now, with the price jumping to $2,300 after the sale, and the Express XL (2.4 meters by 6 meters) will cost $2,000 during the sale, going up to $2,800 afterwards.

The other cool thing about FarmBot is that it’s completely open source — even its financials. All the CAD drawings, software and documentation is online for you to download. In fact, the entire company is open source and transparent about all of its actions and activities.

So far, FarmBot says that it’s shipped more than 1,000 kits to “early adopters” in more than 65 countries. FWIW, in December of 2018, the company reported that it sold a skosh over 800 of its previous Genesis and Genesis XL kits to bring in $2.5 million in revenue.

With its new Express and Express XL models, the company says it is “ready to bring FarmBot to the masses,” which includes not just residential customers, but small scale farmers and places like universities. And while $1,500 isn’t cheap per se, and the machine won’t be of any use for city dwellers because of its size, if the kits are as easy to set up and run as promised, that price point could get those aspiring — but failing — gardeners the robot green thumb they need.

FarmBot Nasa

FarmBot Wants to Cultivate an Open-Source Future for Remote Farming

“Farm from anywhere” is a phrase we’re likely to hear more and more of as technology enables easier access to fresh, locally grown food. We just wrote about Babylon Micro-Farms, a remote, hydroponic farm you can keep inside your living room. There’s also a healthy urban farming market: thanks to companies like Farmshelf and Smallhold, restaurants, schools, and the average consumer get better access to fresh food and more involved in the food production itself.

But no one’s tackled the reinvention of farming quite like the folks at FarmBot.

FarmBot is basically precision agriculture for the people. When he launched the FarmBot project in 2011, founder Rory Aronson wanted to find a way to bring the benefits of remote farming to the everyman without the hefty price tag.

Precision agriculture normally involves technology like self-steering tractors and aerial drones that can make better use of resources. Because the method uses real-time data to understand weather, air quality, labor costs, and other factors, growers can make smarter decisions about how much and how often to employ resources. As its name suggests, precision agriculture provides meticulous records of every single step of the growing process.

Historically, it’s been the territory of industrial farmers. But thanks to Aronson, anyone with a little space and (considerably less) cash can get involved in food production.

Both FarmBot products, made up of cartesean coordinate robots along with software and documentation, can work on rooftops, in backyards, and can accommodate both small- and large-scale farming operations. It’s unclear whether the company means “farm from anywhere” literally, as it says on its website. But considering the highly customizable nature of the product, anyone with some tech know-how could theoretically hack the bot and make it work in any given climate.

A visual interface lets you “plan your garden like a videogame,” according to the company’s website. So the fact that the interface looks a bit like FarmVille is no coincidence. You can drag and drop plants into the virtual plot of land (below), build care regiments, and even scare away birds.

After the garden is planned, the machine plants seeds, measures soil moisture content and water, and can detect and destroy weeds. Email alerts tell a user when the crops are ready for harvest.

It’s also open source, including the hardware, software, and documentation. That means all design files, source code, and hardware specs are available for free on the company’s website, so anyone can customize their farm without having to fork over a bunch of extra money.

Right now, the FarmBot Genesis goes for $2,595 via the company’s website. The FarmBot Genesis XL, which is available for preorder, costs $3,295 and covers “421 percent the area of for just 38% more cost.” Shipments of both machines are expected to go out in May of this year.

Aronson would eventually like to get the price point down to $1,000. It’s unclear whether that will happen soon or if it’s some ways off. Meanwhile, FarmBot is making its way into universities and non-profits, and the company is working with NASA to develop open-source food production on Mars, the Moon, and deep space. Remote farming indeed.

All images courtesy of FarmBot.

Farmbot Readies Shipment Of First Open-Source Robot Farming System

While we’ve seen lots of innovation in home grow tech over the past year, there’s been nothing quite as ambitious as Farmbot, a home robot farming system.

That’s because this Arduino powered, open-source robo-farmer can completely automate the growth of enough vegetables for one adult in a year. Of course, you’ll need to have your own yard in which to grow the veggies and add a whole lot of elbow grease to get one assembled, but the Farmbot shows we’re on the precipice of fully automated home-based microfarming.

One of the most exciting things about the Farmbot is that it’s open source, which means the creators have put all the design documents and software online and, as a result, people are making their own homemade Farmbots.

But if you’re like me and not that handy, you’d want a little help in the form of a pre-fabricated kit. Lucky for us, this is how Farmbot plans to make money. And according to an email update sent out this morning, the company has started the production of 350 of its Farmbot kits and expects to start shipping the kits to early backers by February.

Want to buy one of these robot farmers for the little plot of land in the backyard? You’ll have to wait. The company won’t take new orders to July of this year. Of course, you can always make one of your own, but my guess is since the company has open-sourced the documents, chances are other entrepreneurial makers might get into the automated farm manufacturing business.

You can see how the Farmbot works below:

Introducing FarmBot Genesis