Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Nov 2022 Update: I got everything fixed and working. I found a much better solution to their ridiculous pod price. You can use your Aero garden inserts with an adapter. You can find them on esty. Someone 3d printed and cheap. They allow you to secure your AG pods into the gardyn. Saves a ton of money and they are much better secured than my previous solution. Aug 2022 Update: I have Strawberrys doing lovely. But you can't make this crap up. I figured out why the unit sucks so bad. They used a Raspberry PI as the controller and the program is buggy as hell. Come one guys. Please reach out to me and I would love to give honest feedback. June 2022 Update: This will probably be my last update for this product unless something goes even more wrong. I really tried to make this product work but this was the last straw. You can read my entire review for clarity. Let's start from the top. A.I - Does not work, it's not A.I. it is a time-based system. It's a way to get you to subscribe Cubes - 5$ US EACH! I have a solution below in the review. Another way to get you to subscribe. Cameras - Not helpful or real-time. They could have done without them and put that money elsewhere. Water Level - has never been accurate. Manually Check or you will burn out your pump. Water Pump - Has standard connection in a high moisture environment. It is not IF but when it will fail. Cleaning - Huge Pain. Not worth it. Change your water every 2 weeks! Trust me. Unless you will have to take this thing apart and scrub the algae from every piece. Even still you will still have to clean it, not worth it. Wifi - It does not connect. DO NOT disconnect under any circumstances, if you are lucky enough to connect. I had to solder the pump with the power on because I knew I wouldn't get reconnected this week. Changing Water - do this bi-monthly. Buy (2) 5-gallon buckets and a cheap electric pump. TRUST ME. Change the water. Then cycle the water. Then change the water again. TRUST me! You will still need to scrub but this will delay that. Water Fill- Do not fill to the watermark. You will get mold growing on the bottom of your unit and rust out the cheap motor connection. Cut your roots - You have to go in and trim your roots. Or it will clog your system and water will overrun. Water will run down the outside of the columns. This is extremely common with Kale. Bugs - Yeah big time. Get some yellow sticky tape to solve this but not worth it. Construction - Cheap and everything is made in china. The screws in the top are cheap and will break. Lights - Are not the greatest for this setup. Replacement Parts - At one point in time, they were great. NOT anymore. Good luck with that. I only grow a hand full of plants here, there are much better and cheaper options out there. I WOULD NOT BUT AGAIN All in all, if have these skills listed below this is an ideal product for you, but if you have these skills you can just make a better system that actually works for less than half. Oh yeah, take a look at all the tools your need to make this work as well. Network Engineer Electronics Engineer Master Cleaner Master in Patience My Guess is they Made version 2.0 so quickly because of how crappy 1.0 is. I wouldn't bet any money that 2.0 is any better. My pump randomly stopped working so I figured it died NBD. But when I looked deeper. It was brush-less so I didn't think it was the pump. I Moved it around and it came on and off with varying degrees of power. So I went to the help section and immediately saw they use crappy connectors. WOW really cheap. I solders the parts together ( can cut and re-solder in the future when the pump dies) just to get this thing to work. I also added pig tails for the future. The average Joe shouldn't have to jump through this many hoops to get this thing to work. I am to far deep into this to back out now. But STAY AWAY. P.S Ordered my own strawberry seeds and got them to work. July 2021 Update: This is my first time actually cleaning the unit. I cleaned the towers and they weren't bad. But when I opened the base it smelt like a fish tank with something dead in it. So definitely clean the base every 30 days as recommended. I didn't use soap, just hot water and scrubed everything really well you could probably clean the towers as needed but you want to keep the base clean. I forgot to take a picture... thats how bad it smelt. The real issue is reconnecting... good lord that was painful. It took 3 days for me to say screw it and used the hotspot on my phone. Im super tech savvy but this was terrible. My High end wireless router was 10 feet with clear line of sight and I followed the directions. Then, once I did get a connection they made me sign up for another subscription. Dude I already have the device. Why do I need to subscribe again. Yeah cancel anytime but I already canceled once. The business model stinks real bad. Not sure if I would recommend to anyone at this point. They have a lot of work to do. I still haven't bought lettuce sense i bought the unit which was the point but its a love hate relationship at this point. Fix the silly subscription requirement and charge a decent price for the pods and you guys have a winner. Or just stay greedy... Jun 7 Update: Still producing lettuce at a very high yield with other plants doing quite well also. I did start to see nats. I found a simple non toxic solution that actually works. Link posted below. Still a great product and I am happy with the purchase. I am still figuring out the timing of the plants but as far as I am concerned it's worth it to never buy "organic" lettuce ever again. I use plant wet plant food from other suppliers which seem to work quite well. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OV8OTY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_QZ389PDXFYT50B3H52VT?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 Mar 23 Update: In terms of Pure Yield (per Cubic foot) for lettuce you wont beat this system with anything off the shelf. I have looked and spent money on everything. This unit is packaged and contained and VERY Hard to beat. Sure you could make the same thing in your garage and it would look like you made it in your garage. In terms of peppers or tomatoes there are other options. PUMP WATER LEVEL is inaccurate, not a big deal for me because I water other systems regularly. My pump was running really loud one day and it was "dry cycling" which is really bad for the pump. I checked the app and it said it was 80% but bone dry. Just keep and eye on that. I solved the issue of their over priced $5 empty pod plus $10 shipping nonsense. Once again if you ask, Jeff B will provide and provide he did. I found Net pods that fit perfectly into the Gardyn Unit for $8 for 40. And if you pair that with $11 for 49 grow cubes. You have 40 Grow anything Pods for 20 bucks. Verse the $200 the company would charge you. Its a big deal overtime, if you grow and eat everything like I do. So all you have to do now is pick what you want to grow. All In all I still love the product and would by again. I figured out the work-around so it makes much more sense for me now as well. Pods https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XJ2G6FS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Grow Material https://www.amazon.com/Rockwool-Grow-Cubes-1-5-Inches/dp/B00IA8AJLO/ref=pd_bxgy_img_3/145-0051392-9629317?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00IA8AJLO&pd_rd_r=881a064e-a896-4eb6-808a-77aa8d625497&pd_rd_w=aJl4G&pd_rd_wg=V6XZc&pf_rd_p=f325d01c-4658-4593-be83-3e12ca663f0e&pf_rd_r=0A3BDBJY5EXV677N0C4T&psc=1&refRID=0A3BDBJY5EXV677N0C4T Next: strawberries Mar 12 21 Update: I typically clean the inside of the unit when I change the plant. And there is some green alge growing in there. Not the end of the world. I also used a plastic tomato holder to grow the seedlings and it works extremely well using plane old rockwoll. If your big into healthy living and eating fresh. You can't beat this, for lettuce or similar style plants. I use my Farm XL for all the tall growing stuff such as peppers and tomotaos. Those two in tandem make a homestead a LOT less work. Cons: Kelby still isn't free. I don't think you need the AI however other companies offer the same thing for free. Pods are still 5 bucks plus 10 to ship. Pros: The freshest food you will ever eat. Recommendation: Sell the plastic inserts for the Gardyn separate from the plants and I would definitely upgrade to 5 stars. Thats the primary limiting factor for me at least. It's either buy all our product or have a much less than idea experience. I'm extremely handly and can make pods. But it's annoying and wouldn't mind buying 50 pods or so at a time and they can still make a profit. Mar 6 21 update: I traveled and the unit was broken in a few spots. Ordering replacement parts was seemless and they gave extra parts with the original purchase. This last photos are 30 days after the new grow with store purchased seeds and rockwell. If they come down from $5 on the per pod purchase. Then they would get 5 star's. But $30 a month for Kelby and 5 plants is ridiculous considering the unit is almost a $1000. 1/11/21 Update: The product itself is ok. The real issue is their business model. Which is crap. You spend a fortune compared to other options. But the real grip is what you need to swap out plants. They want to charge you 5 bucks for a small piece of plastic and Rockwoll insulation plus $10 bucks to ship it which is ridiculous. Or you can spend 30 a month and get their service and get 5 pods a month plus the AI support. This is makes the trust cost of ownership absurd. There are hacks that people are doing. But I wanted the real thing from the company and I didn't mind paying if it was reasonable. Seriously look into what it costs over the long term and chances are this isn't the product for you. I'm super disappointed because I planned on buying 3 more but it's not worth it compared to other options with similar output. I currently own 3 Areo Garden Units and this is the best of them all. I could not decided between this product and the Tower Gardyn and I eventually picked this product. Completely worth it. You can sustain your self on one of these. Not cheap but completely worth it.