One of the most popular smart agriculture hardware are weather stations that combine multiple smart farming sensors. These weather stations are often located near the farmer fields and collect data which is then relayed to a cloud hosted hub. The measurements that are provided can be then used to map the climate conditions, choose the appropriate crops, and take the required measures to improve their yield (i.e. precision farming).
Most often, farmers will manually control the environment in their greenhouses. The use of Agriculture IoT sensors and hardware enables farmers to get real-time data on their greenhouse conditions, like the lighting, temperature, soil condition, and humidity. In addition to just collecting data, smart greenhouse sensors and systems can also adjust the climate setting to keep the greenhouse conditions where they are needed. By controlling the parameters they can adjust the ripening of the ir porducts to avoid having a glut in the markets.
Another type of IoT product in agriculture that has proven to be paramount for farmers are smart crop management devices and hardware. Crop management systems are installed around the field and collect data on the crops. The data collected includes temperature, precipitation, rate of growth, early detection of disease and mineral deficiencies, that are vital to crop health.
Just farmers need to gather information on their crops, they also need to gather data on their livestock in order to properly manage it. Livestock smart devices can help with tracking animals, and also provide updates on the animals’ health and well-being. By using Agricultural IoT devices, farmers can help save money on labour and employees by having their smart devices keep tabs on their livestock, instead of having to rely on employees.