With the recent uptake in active indoor growing using specialised equipment, be it vegetables, seedlings, insects or cannabis, has highlighted the fact that people are still stuck in the ‘old school’ way of doing things with timers and relays. Previously when growing indoors, devices like lights, fans and heaters had to be plugged into timers and relays to make basic decisions based on a single condition. This has been a huge deterrent. This, coupled with the fact of not knowing what is going on in your grow tent while you’re not present, has also kept new growers away. That is no longer the case with the brand new SASH Controller for indoor growers, allowing you to be present wherever you are, visually see inside your grow tent, have the opportunity to set rules and monitor as well as keep track and react to your grow. All from the comfort of…well, anywhere really.
A passionate inventor and software developer in Cape Town, has – together with Application Frameworks Pty Ltd – created an innovative product ready to disrupt the indoor growing technology space. SASH is a physical IOT controller developed with one job in mind – to control and keep track of your indoor growing activities. The SASH controller is a physical device which you place with your grow, consisting of 6 plugs connected to a power outlet that can be switched on and off by means of rules you apply via the website – www.sash-iot.co.za – on your profile. The perfect marriage of a physical product, with high-end technology and software development.
“I have been in the software development environment for almost 20 years now and have been required to continuously develop innovative solutions to existing problems in different markets. Looking at the general South African market, I realised that the new legal cannabis industry is the first completely new industry in South Africa for a long time and has some great potential. With having some experience in legal cannabis growing, I could identify a need in the market that has not yet been satisfied. That is for the indoor grower having to control so many devices like lights, fans, heaters and more and having to do it with outdated technologies inherited from older industries. Innovation was very limited and I believed and still do that the legal cannabis industry can be a game changer in South Africa for job opportunities and possible tax revenue.” adds, software developer, Ruan de Kock.
The Controller connects to your phone (using the SASH App) via Bluetooth which acts like a monitor for your chosen indoor grow, here you can point your camera in the right direction, configure wifi connection details, give your plugs a proper name and monitor the current state of the controller (plugs on/off, temperature, humidity, what the camera is seeing) in real time. The controller will also upload all of this information to the cloud and associate it with your SASH journal where it is readily accessible and formatted for easy digestion. When you are out of Bluetooth range the app has a dashboard feature where you can also view this data neatly packaged for interpretation on the dashboard. The website takes all of this a step further and makes the journal come alive. Here is where you can set up profiles and do more customizations of the controller, profiles and environment. All of this gives you the peace of mind that your grow is going to plan without ever having to disturb the sanctity of your grow tent. The information however gives you the peace of mind that you will know if there is a major issue that needs human intervention without having to be within arm’s reach of your grow all the time.
“Being a passionate home beer brewer, I knew the importance of recording your steps, processes, readings and information for later investigation and learning from past experiences. This is critical if you want to reproduce a success or not repeat a failure. Knowing this, I designed an online growing journal, which integrates directly into the SASH Controller, called the SASH Journal. This houses all your information in one place and helped me alot in being able to research past successes and failures to learn from.” de Kock adds.
All of these SASH Components were added as an answer to a problem founder and developer, Ruan de Kock faced. “All of this allowed me to not have to be present at my grow tent all the time, meaning I could spend more time doing other things, while my SASH Controller was keeping my grow going, but I still needed to know if something went wrong while I was not there. This is where the idea for the SASH Profile alert notifications came about. An example being when the temperature was above 30 degrees for more than 15 minutes, or my heater was switched on continuously for more than 30 minutes, the push notifications would indicate that it was not strong enough or it was malfunctioning.” explains Ruan.
In addition, indoor growers using the SASH controller have access to reminders and alerts for their watering and nutrient schedules. “In the beginning of a new home grow, a grower decides on a watering and nutrient schedule and then tries to keep to it to get reproducible results. As humans do, we forget or misconfigure reminders, therefore the idea of a watering and nutrient schedule was introduced, reminding you when to do what – all via the SASH app on your phone.” adds de kock.
Importantly, especially to the South African market, the SASH Controller also comes with a hardware clock with a battery backup that will keep time during load shedding, meaning after load shedding the correct time is restored on your controller and all is well with the world again.
SASH has successfully launched in October 2020, and will be available for purchase at The African Cannabis Vexpo from 26 – 28 November 2020.
For more information, please visit www.sash-iot.co.za.
