3rd Gen Eve Aqua review: never kill your plants again!

You know how smart thermostats work by automatically adjusting your climate-control system to improve efficiency? Smart water controllers work the same way but for your outdoor watering needs. Eve recently launched its new 3rd Gen Eva Aqua water metering device. This rather large block of technology gives you remote control over your hose, sprinkler or drip irrigation flow. In this review I’ll talk about what the device can do and what account, what it’s like to install, and how well it works overall.

What is Eve Aqua 3rd Gen?

In short, Eve Aqua is a remote water controlling device. It attaches to your hose bib to allow you to control the flow of water any time. Used with the Apple HomeKit app (and yes, that’s the only way to use it) you can adjust schedules, turn your water on and off and even connect drip irrigation and time daily waterings for your plants. All from your iPhone.

Eve Systems introduced the Eve Aqua back in 2018 and since that first release, the company has been making incremental improvements every 2 years. Currently at its third generation, the Eve Aqua keeps its role focused as a smart irrigation controller but it is the first product revision to have a brand-new design with a larger power button on its matte black front and a darker grey body. Eve made some welcome improvements within the Aqua’s squircle box as well boasting improved leak protection and significantly reduced noise levels when running.

Installation & power for Eve Aqua

Before you install your device you need to put in the included AA batteries. These batteries should give you about five months of power; probably enough for most of the spring and summer season. I will point out that installing the batteries was a bit frustrating. The mechanism and battery cover on the inside is rather oddly designed, and makes it extremely difficult to open the compartment and wedge the batteries inside.

Installing the Eve Aqua onto your hose bib is pretty simple as the top screw should securely attach to any standard outdoor tap. The included 26.5 mm threaded hose connector makes the Eve Aqua fully compatible with all the popular water distributors and hose systems like Gardena.

Even so, Eve Aqua’s size is particularly huge… While most folks probably won’t have this concern, I struggled to get it to fit it into a small area near our back steps, and needed an adapter. But no knock on Eve for this… Once you have everything set up, the Eve Aqua serves as the gatekeeper to your sprinklers and multi-channel water distributors. You do need to leave your tap on, and let Eve Aqua control the flow for you, so you’ll want to ensure your connections are tight or sealed if they need to be.

You can turn on the water by pressing the button on the front or use your iPhone, Apple Watch or Siri.

What is it good for?

On the most basic level, the Eve Aqua is a handy little gadget for adding a master switch to your entire water irrigation setup. To unlock all the extra magic, you’ll need an iPhone or an iPad, and a home hub like Apple TV or HOmePod is needed to unlock all the full functionality of Eve devices; If you are familiar with any of Eve’s other products that shouldn’t be very surprising.

The Eve for HomeKit app grants you more than just a remote trigger for your water distribution system; it also tells you all sorts of useful stats such as the last time you switched the Eve Aqua on and your water consumption per day. It also gives you full flexibility on scheduling and automation with support for Siri Shortcuts. You can even pause watering automatically if rain is in the forecast; more on that later…

Do I need Wi-Fi in my garden?

The secret behind the Eve Aqua’s multi-month battery life is the fact that it solely relies on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) so you don’t need Wi-Fi in your garden. Although that limits the wireless range, having a HomeKit-enabled product like a HomePod or Apple TV 4K greatly helps the Eve Aqua feel like a full smart device citizen.
It also makes the Eve Aqua a very practical choice if you have another Eve product in your home such as an Eve Weather since you only need a single iOS app to manage them all.

While I enjoyed using the Eve iOS app, I really wished Eve would add support for other platforms. Turns out Eve took its first step towards that that wish thanks to a technology called Thread opening a third way for the Eve Aqua to interact with other Eve products. A very cool thing about Thread is how efficiently it operates and doesn’t require a fancy bridge. What’s even better is Eve’s promise to upgrade all Thread-enabled devices including the Eve Aqua to Matter, which is an emerging standard that Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and other big smart home brands support. I’m very excited to try this feature out when it launches!

Is there an automation feature to stop watering if it’s going to rain?

Within the Eve for HomeKit app (rather than the HomeKit app itself), you can configure the Eve Aqua to pause any schedules you previously set if Siri senses a rainy weather forecast. This feature needs to work with Apple’s Shortcuts app, so it’s a bit clunky, but with the Check Watering shortcut enabled, Eve lets you suspend the watering schedules stored on your Eve Aqua if the weather is going to take a turn for the worse. This does seem to require you running the shortcut by pressing the button in the Shortcuts app on any given day, as opposed to this working entirely independently. At least that’s how it looks in my limited time with this feature… So that’s kind of coolo, but you’ll have to remember to activate it.

Operating temperature range

I’ll spill a wee bit of ink on the operating temperatures for this device, particularly since I live in the great White North. The Operating Range will handle heat, but not any kind of cold, running smoothly from 4 °C – 50 °C / 39 °F – 122 °F.

This means Canadians and my pals in the colder parts of the USA will want to remove this device for the winter and wait until overnight freezes pass before spring installation. For us, that’s not that much different than winterizing your hose bib which you should be doing any way.

Overall Thoughts on Eve Aqua 3rd Gen

Overall, Eve Aqua is a cool, handy gadget and it’s going to make next summer’s garden even more productive and healthy. Now that I have it, I’m probably going to add a drip irrigation system so I can keep on top of things. Using the push button to turn water on or off is easier than twisting a rusty old dial, and asking Siri to water the garden is even easier. The Eve for HomeKit app is pretty easy to navigate and offers a lot of customization and options for your needs. I love the scheduling feature, and while I think the ability to pause the schedule when rain is in the forecast is neat, it could be even more automated.

Downsides? The device is quite large, but I think in most installations that won’t be an issue. It does only work with the Apple Homekit ecosystem which might be a disappointment for some. Changing and installing the batteries isn’t super easy but that should only be a once or twice a year problem.
All that aside, Eve Aqua is a great, handy automation gadget for the yard or garden. It sells for about $149USD/$219CAD and you can get it from Apple or Amazon.

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