IQ Floor Makes A smart probe for your garden

Soil IQ is a company that is leading the "Internet of things" trend to urban agriculture and rural.

They are building a probe that transmits and soil fertility
time
data matched to an application. Founded by a graduate of Princeton and soil scientist who has worked with hundreds of Kenyan farmers to increase crop yields, Soil mission of IQ is to help people to grow food more sustainably.

"The reality in this country is that most of our food is produced in factory farms," said CEO Jason Aramburu. "This is excellent for the production of corn, soybeans and grains, but not so good for the production of healthy food."

In response, IQ soil has incorporated a mobile ground sensor for small gardens and farms to help normal people grow a healthy supply of fruits and vegetables. Its probe is fed by a
solar panel
so it can run indefinitely. They are retailing for about $ 49 to consumers and partners thinking bigger.

So you are not only aimed at American consumers, the company has a dual mission. They are also working with one of its investors, Orange Telecom, to help implement these probes to farmers in East Africa.

Aramburu previously started an organization called re: char, where he worked with over 1,300 Kenyan farmers to increase their yields.

But now he says he is trying to focus on the production of food for the 100 million households in the USA So he moved to the construction of IQ ground. The probe can track and transmit soil nutrient content, pH, temperature, moisture, and light data. They have built an analytics platform that makes recommendations to home gardeners about how to optimize the seed selection, fertilization and irrigation.

You can run either ground-based or hydroponic gardens, either food or medicinal crops. They even rigged to send SMS or
Twitter
alerts when the plants need attention.

They also have a big ace in the pocket through a partnership with Yves Behar, fuseproject behind the famous industrial designer and creative director behind the jaw. He will help you with the application configuration floors IQ and product.

The business model has a number of different angles. Not only is the hardware revenue, IQ soil could also license its data set, assuming enough people use it to produce interesting on which crops grow well in different environments data. Furthermore, if enough of a consumer base build, could also earn affiliate income promoting other products such as organic fertilizer or seeds.