You couldn't make it up: as recently as a few years ago, Mattias Lepp was an orchestra conductor. After realizing that he "would never be a great conductor," humble Estonian took to developing a home gardening system, and the rest, as they say, is history. Click and Grow has established itself in Europe and has been looking to expand into the US market as of last year. According to their blog,
It all started in 2005, when Mattias happened to read a NASA report about technologies that make it possible to grow plants in outer space. At first, the information about the technology wasn't nothing more than just good knowledge...However, things took a twist in 2009, when Mattias went through another research paper which stated that every year about 20 billion euros worth of houseplants are thrown away around the world due to mismanagement issues. Baffled that so many people around the world are having trouble caring for their plants, Mattias identified an uncovered market demand. By connecting the two things, the widespread plant managing problems and the knowledge about the technology, the idea of Click & Grow was formed.
In the first round of research and development it became evident that the growing method called aeroponics... wasn't the proper solution. To solve peoples' problems of managing plants, a more complex method was needed, a foolproof method that is.
The attention was turned to a field of study called biomimicry. Biomimicry is the examination of nature, its models and processes, elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems. The basic idea in R&D was to map the key aspects and processes of plant growth and create a medium that perfectly imitates them. By developing a special substrate which holds the nutrients and seeds, and using sensors, a processor and software to measure and care for the plants exact needs, an ideal environment for growing plants was created in the form of the Click & Grow smartpot.
The proprietary nanotechnology and software is enclosed within the proverbial black box of the cartridge system.
Check out the teaser video:
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