Life

This Robot Planter Follows The Sunlight & Throws Tantrums If You Don't Water It

by Brittany Bennett
Vincross

Dear fellow and aspiring houseplant people, there's a new must have planter and it's so much more than a trendy terra cotta pot. A robot planter can keep your houseplants alive, because we live in the future. Even if your thumb is anything but green, your home can still be an Eden of ivy and ferns. All of this is thanks to a new robot friend that doesn't not look like the sweetest six-legged spider. The future is now, people, and the spider plant in the corner of my room is here for it.

Dogs and cats are cool, but millennials seem to be more into houseplants than house pets. A National Gardening Survey in 2016 reported that out of 6 million people who took up gardening in 2015, 5 million were millennials. You can pick up a new houseplant friend in your coffee shop these days. It's safe to say the lot of us are avid indoor gardeners. With the robot planter, you get healthy plants but also a makeshift house pet.

The HEXA Plant was created by Vincross's founder Sun Tianqi after he witnessed a dead sunflower — sad — at a flower expo that could have been saved if it were just moved into the sun. Tianqi's solution? Create a robot planter that will move the plant according to wherever the sun is in your house. Like a cat always trying to catch that sunny spot by the window.

This planter has one mission, and that's to keep your plant alive. It will find the sun for your plant, and then the shade when the plant needs to cool down. When your plant needs water, it will throw a temper tantrum by stomping around so you know to grab the watering can. But just because it's paying most of its programmed mind to your plant, that doesn't mean it won't interact with you.

Per Food & Wine, the HEXA Plant can reportedly "play" with you if you touch its base. It has the ability to spin around and even does a happy dance in the sunny spots of your home because Vitamin D is that powerful, y'all. Think of the HEXA Planter as your indoor gardening assistant. While you'll have to prune and water your plants, the planter will make sure they get the optimal lighting. It doesn't just crawl to the light, it spins so every leaf of your precious plant can soak in the rays. If that's not considered innovation, I don't know what is!

Caring for our plants is practically part of the self-care movement. Having houseplants has psychological benefits. They help us de-stress and inspire increased productivity. Certain plants in the bedroom can even improve sleep quality. They might also enhance creativity thinking which pretty much assumes them the identify of artistic muse. We deserve the best and so does our ever-flowing Golden Pothos plant.

The HEXA Planter is not yet available for purchase, but the original HEXA is, for a cool price of $949. We live in the future now where houseplants — or sunflowers — soon won't need to suffer an untimely death regardless of whether your thumb is green or not. I'll take 10, thanks.