#177 - Canada & Project Harmony Update

[00:00:02] Pick up your microphones, haha, pick up your microphones, yo.

[00:00:11] Hello my friends, welcome back to The Sprinkler Nerd Show. How you doing? How's your Saturday going? Or your Sunday? Or your Monday? Whatever day it is you happen to be listening to this episode? Shit, perhaps it's July 4th. Wow, that'd be crazy. July 4th, 2025. This could be you today. July 4th, 2025.

[00:00:33] All right, let's get right into this because this is going to be more of like a little update episode, just something short. And I wanted to just kind of let you know what's ahead, what's going on for me, what's coming up this week, a couple things I've been working on. So yeah, just wanted to take a moment, share a quick update on what's happening this week ahead. I will be traveling to both Calgary and Edmonton, Canada. Maybe I'll get to see Wayne Gretzky. No, I'm just kidding.

[00:01:02] But as a kid, that's really all I knew about Edmonton was those Oilers and that great Wayne Gretzky. But I'm sure there will be a lot of hockey, a little hockey going on up there in, oh, Canada. So yeah, Sunday I'm heading up, which is actually coming up tomorrow. I'm recording this episode early Saturday morning before I head out, run a couple errands and then go fat biking on the trails, the winter snow trails here in northern Michigan.

[00:01:29] So in any case, I'm headed to Calgary Sunday and then heading up to Edmonton later in the week for two of the SiteOne Landscape Supply, what they call one-stop events. One on Tuesday, that'll be in Calgary, and then the other on Thursday, that's in Edmonton. And then after that, I'll head back to the airport Thursday night and catch an early flight out on Friday. Sometimes I have to adjust travel schedule also based on family schedule.

[00:01:57] So what that means is I'll be actually driving down to Grand Rapids. I'm in Traverse City, which is about a little over two-hour drive to the Grand Rapids airport. But I'll depart out of Grand Rapids instead of my usual airport here in TVC because when I return, I'll be meeting up with my youngest daughter, Hadley, 15. And she'll be driving down with a friend, but we're going to head straight to a volleyball tournament in La Porte, Indiana.

[00:02:26] I don't know much about La Porte. I've been there a few times for volleyball. Kind of in the middle of nowhere, and I mean that in the best way. It's not a negative thing, just kind of in the middle of nowhere, Indiana. So that'll wrap up my week. Quick trip, which is actually not quick. A few nights up in Canada and then to La Porte, Indiana to wrap up the week back home on Sunday.

[00:02:49] So if you are in Calgary or the Edmonton area, or if you're not in those areas, but you plan to attend any of the or either of the SiteOne events, please make it a point to say hello. It's always a pleasure meeting industry professionals. I love to hear what's going on in your world.

[00:03:13] And because I speak into the microphone, which is like a black box, it's so refreshing to meet you all that listen in and can provide tips for me and other types of content that you'd like to listen to. So if you're in Calgary or Edmonton, stop by the SiteOne events. We'd love to say hello to you. Let's see. Then I'm going to give you a quick little update on what I call Project Harmony.

[00:03:43] And many of you know that, well, to make a long story short, pretty much spent my entire career working with soil moisture sensors and advanced irrigation control systems, helping to build the baseline company from the very, very beginning. And we'll talk about that later on. But decided to sort of work on a project of my own, which is to say, build the sensor platform that I always wished I had and doesn't exist.

[00:04:11] And I call it Harmony or Harmony Analytica. But I kind of refer to it as a project. And the reason I do is because projects tend to be in progress or something that you're working on, something that isn't finished. And I may, in fact, call it Project Harmony forever because I really like the thought of not being done with something, but to always be improving what you're working on.

[00:04:41] And so I just think the word project goes well instead of product or a thing. It's like, no, this is a project. Please give me your advice. How can we change this? How can we make it better? So calling it Project Harmony. And again, for those that have been following along on my journey, I'm trying to bring what I might consider to be an affordable wireless soil moisture sensor to market, a monitoring platform.

[00:05:10] Soil moisture among other, among many devices. But soil moisture being the actual device that I am manufacturing and plan to manufacture at scale. And so far, we've successfully deployed a few hundred beta sensors. And the beta sensors are handcrafted by yours truly. And this has been so much fun.

[00:05:34] Never thought that, you know, building something with your own hands could just bring so much joy. And I can't wait to, you know, bring any of you or all of you under the hood and show you exactly how I have been building these sensors by hand in order to learn every piece of the process before going to scale. Because once you go to scale, there's really no turning back.

[00:05:59] Once you have many units, whatever the number might be, a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand. Once those units are finished and they're in a warehouse somewhere, you really can't change them other than maybe some firmware stuff under the hood. But the way they look, the way they're built, all those things are fixed.

[00:06:19] And so I just kind of spent the last 18 months learning everything that I could so that when it comes time to go and build at scale, it's nearly close to perfect as possible. Because you only get one shot sort of, one shot-ish. So, I would say that the, it hasn't really even been a beta launch. It's more like word of mouth.

[00:06:49] Those of you listening, you know who you are that have tested sensors. And those of you who are listening that would love to test some sensors, let me know. Reach out to me. You know what? I will drop a quick form on the website, which is harmonyanalytica.com. I'm saying this now, so there's a chance you're going to listen to this episode. And the form is not there yet. So be patient. I'll put a form up there on, let's just call it harmonyanalytica.com forward slash beta.

[00:07:19] I'll drop a link down here in the show notes as well. And let's say for a hundred bucks, I'll set you up with a sensor, a wireless sensor, a built on LoRa, a LoRa sensor, and a Wi-Fi hub for a hundred bucks. And you can be a part of the beta community.

[00:07:40] And I got a lot of plans actually for, well, they're thoughts anyway, ideas for how to put together and work with you guys as select beta users. And really just trying to find industry professionals that are really interested in this kind of technology that want to integrate wireless sensors into their business.

[00:08:03] Perhaps, you know, perhaps I can launch some kind of like a private group with you guys, which is, which I would like to be different than, you know, business groups and in those sorts of things. But more just like a group of the nerds, really like a group of the nerds that like to tinker, try things, take a little risk, get some feedback and work on this project together. So that's a little update on Project Harmony.

[00:08:32] And actually, before I finish that little piece, it's what's fascinating about bringing sensors to market is that I find the biggest challenge hasn't been in the data measurements. Meaning take soil moisture, for instance. The biggest challenge hasn't been actually perfecting the moisture readings. Yes, we are working on that. Yes, there's always room for improvement.

[00:08:59] But the most difficult part has actually been the manufacturing process. And for me to be able to build these sensors, build these beta sensors as affordably as possible to protect investment. I've basically learned every piece of the process along the way so that I could build them what you might call bespoke, bespoke sensors. I've had to learn, you know, the 3D printing process.

[00:09:29] I've gone through multiple brands of 3D printers. Now I own four 3D printers. You know, learning how to epoxy seal the sensors like a decoder. So, you know, just a little update there. All of the soil moisture sensors are sealed just like an irrigation decoder. You could throw it in the lake and it will be just fine.

[00:09:53] And that came to be because I didn't want any water intrusion to be a factor. I'd rather have a sensor only last three years or four years than a sensor that you can replace the batteries but has a risk of failing. So, I'll get to that later. But just learning how to epoxy, you know, pot was challenging.

[00:10:17] You know, what types of glues can I use to put the two pieces of the housing together before potting them up? All these kinds of things. And I most recently just learned how to vapor smooth the 3D printing to remove the lines.

[00:10:40] And it's almost like a two-to-one process, meaning for every two sensors I manufacture, only one makes it to the field because of this learning process. And so, you know, many of the sensors work perfectly. Some have small cosmetic blemishes, you know, kind of making them unsellable in their current standard.

[00:11:03] And this is one of the ideas I had for this beta group that I just mentioned is that it's possible I could offer or I would, if I could get a group of you guys together that are willing to, you know, be tight-lipped and help support the project, then I would also have a way to, you know, not dispose of cosmetically blemished sensors, but to actually put them to use.

[00:11:33] Even though they're not sellable, they work perfectly fine. A lot of them just have, like I said, cosmetic blemishes. So if you're curious how wireless sensors work, how they might add value to your business and how we could revolutionize the part of the industry that I'm calling the monitoring and analytics side, we'd love to connect with you.

[00:11:59] So let's create the next, let's create that next wave of innovation outside the traditional wholesale manufacturers and suppliers. And yeah, I haven't launched this form yet, but it will go up on harmonyanalytica.com forward slash beta. Let's see. I think that is pretty much all I had in store this week.

[00:12:25] One little personal update, something that I didn't know that I would enjoy, but I have totally enjoyed it as I started doing something called hot yoga recently. And, you know, I am a healthy person. I'm not the most, let's say, fit person, but I do ride my, you know, bike, mountain bike and my road bike all the time in the summer.

[00:12:49] And I ride three days a week inside for an hour in a kind of like a high performance cycling studio. And I think because of there's a, because I ride my bike a lot, I don't have a lot of flexibility, especially in my, in my hips. And I had a friend here that said, Hey, why don't you come join me for hot yoga? And at first I thought, geez, the hot yoga, an hour and a half in a room that's 105 to 110 degrees. Are you kidding me?

[00:13:19] But I like trying new things. And it was almost like the thrill of doing something new got me interested. So I said, F it, I'm going to give it a try. And I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't do many of the moves. I can try. I can do them, you know, a little, but I stayed in the room for the entire time.

[00:13:40] And, uh, if you have done hot yoga before, you'll know what I'm talking about in terms of it just being very relaxing, very grounding, uh, very, uh, in many ways, very analog because of the digital world that we live in. And it's just sort of like, wow, it's been very, um, soothing.

[00:14:04] So anyway, that might be a little woo woo, but, uh, I would, you know, highly recommend if you have a hot yoga in your area, uh, don't be afraid to be the guy that can't bend down and touch their toes because you're not alone. There's many of those. So yeah, um, that's what I have going on this coming week. We'd love to see any of you guys that are up there, up there in Canada. And, uh, thank you for listening.

[00:14:33] I'm sure I'm missing something here, but, uh, that's okay. If I think about it, I'll write it down and share it with you next time. So thanks again for listening. Have a great day and we'll catch you on the next episode. Happy sprinkling. Happy sprinkling.