Mission

To reconnect people with the Earth.

History

Growbud came to be in much the same way any being comes into this world: questionable decision making and allowing nature to lead the way. The grandfather of Growbud, Steve, was an avid gardener and inventor. He passed on to his son Mike a legacy of humble hacking, which means to explore the world by means of performing grueling, wearisome tasks for no apparent reason.

Mike and Steve would garden together, but out of necessity both maintained their own secret gardens. Over the years they grew older, and local laws and regulations changed to where they no longer felt uneasy and could merge the secret gardens. Despite both having a natural understanding of plants and good results prior to the merge they noticed they had different ways of increasing yield and improving the quality of the flowers. To better understand why some batches yielded more or were higher quality they purchased several sensors and started recording environmental conditions. This proved to be an arduous, inexact process but over time they were able to greatly improve the plants they were growing.

Upon hearing and sampling the results firsthand friends and colleagues were eager to try out the sensing systems, so they made a few batches to test out. The feedback was positive, but there were concerns over both quality and cost. As they looked closer it was clear the systems were overcomplicated and unfocused. As humble hackers they knew there was only one way out: to create a sensor with a laser focus on meeting the needs of high value crop growers.

Mike, his wife Emanuele, and a few colleagues from the consumer electronics industry spent many a long night to bring the first batch of Growbuds to the world in 2021. There have been major setbacks and heartbreaks along the journey including the loss of Steve and delays in production due to the global electronic component shortage. The silver lining is that the team has had time to build a commercial grade variant of the Growbud that is the unique effort of a team of humble hackers dedicated to bringing positivity to the world. Due to the high quality and affordability of the design both homegrowers and cultivation facilities alike can gain precision insight into their plants’ environment.

All Growbuds are proudly designed and made in the USA, and the team has used their years of experience in the IoT industry to make a one-of-a-kind grow sensor that stands apart from the pack.

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