Aiper Irrisense 2 review

Aiper Irrisense 2: Introduction

• Type: Smart watering system
• Connection: Wi-Fi

Keeping a garden green through the summer usually means choosing between standing outside with a hose or setting up a sprinkler that waters everything in its path, whether it needs it or not.

The Aiper Irrisense 2 offers a smarter alternative. Rather than firing water indiscriminately across the garden, it maps your outdoor space and controls the direction and pressure of its jet. That means it can water precisely defined areas, follow borders and even target individual plants.

It promises the flexibility of a traditional sprinkler without the complexity of installing a full irrigation system. There are practical compromises, particularly when it comes to size and placement, but the Irrisense 2 is an impressively capable piece of garden technology.

Design and features

• Large and difficult to hide
• Requires both water and power
• Excellent mapping and scheduling options

The Aiper Irrisense 2 might technically be a sprinkler, but it doesn’t look like one. It is much larger than the typical plastic attachment you connect to a hose, resembling the self-emptying dock supplied with some robot vacuum cleaners.

There is a reason for that bulk. The Irrisense 2 does far more than simply push out water at the full pressure supplied by your tap. Its motorised head rotates through 360 degrees, while the system automatically adjusts the water pressure to control how far the stream travels.

The result is much more precise watering. Instead of soaking a fence or patio to reach the plants beyond it, you can tell the Irrisense 2 exactly where the water should land.

Installation takes more thought than it would with a conventional sprinkler. The Irrisense 2 needs a hose connection and a nearby power supply. A long power cable is included, but you’ll still need a suitable outdoor socket.

Connecting the water supply is straightforward. First, the supplied male hose connector screws into the short hose at the rear of the unit, after which a standard garden hose can be attached.

Positioning the sprinkler is the harder part. It needs to sit somewhere level, with enough water pressure to reach every part of the intended watering area. Aiper claims a maximum range of 12 metres, although the real-world distance will depend heavily on your home’s water pressure.

Aiper’s promotional images show the Irrisense 2 sitting in the middle of a lawn. That might provide the best coverage, but it also means running a hose and power cable across the grass. Placing it at the edge of the garden is generally neater, provided the sprinkler can still reach everything that needs watering.

Before securing it, the Irrisense 2 pairs with the Aiper app and runs a sprinkler test. The app provides controls for rotating the head and adjusting the water pressure, making it easy to check whether the stream can reach the farthest points of the garden.

If the standard nozzle doesn’t provide enough range, Aiper includes an alternative jet nozzle designed for low-pressure water supplies. Otherwise, you may need to experiment with the unit’s position.

Once you’ve found the right location, a locator stake is pushed into the ground and the Irrisense 2 sits on top. The locator can remain in place when the sprinkler is stored over winter, allowing it to return to precisely the same position the following year.

Ground screws then secure the sprinkler using the supplied hex key. This is important because the mapping system relies on the Irrisense 2 remaining in a fixed location.

Mapping is handled through the app. The main option is an area map, created by rotating the sprinkler and adjusting the water pressure to mark a series of boundary points. Once complete, the Irrisense 2 waters the perimeter before gradually reducing the pressure on each pass, working its way towards the sprinkler.

The level of control is excellent. I could direct the stream towards jasmine at the far end of the garden, then reduce the pressure enough to water a rose positioned close to the Irrisense 2. Maps can also be edited later if you miss a section or send water somewhere it shouldn’t go.

Multiple areas can be created, allowing the Irrisense 2 to treat lawns, borders and flower beds separately. You can also ignore sections that don’t require watering.

Alongside area maps, there are line and point modes. Point mode targets a single position, making it useful for a plant that needs extra water. Line mode waters a sequence of points, such as plants arranged along a border.

Each mapped zone can be started manually or assigned its own schedule. The app asks you to select the desired water coverage in inches, with no metric option available. For reference, 0.1 inches is equivalent to around 2.54mm of rainfall.

Per-zone scheduling adds useful flexibility. Thirstier plants can be watered frequently, while established borders or drought-tolerant areas can be given less attention.

Weather controls help prevent unnecessary watering. The app can check the forecast and skip a scheduled session when heavy rain or strong wind is expected. There is also an onboard rain sensor that can stop the Irrisense 2 from running when it detects rainfall.

Performance

• Impressively accurate targeting
• Consistent, even coverage
• Sensitive to changes in water pressure

After mapping the whole garden, I set the Irrisense 2 to deliver 0.5 inches of water. Its accuracy was immediately impressive.

The sprinkler followed the boundary I had created closely, including points positioned near the patio where I was sitting. Despite my concerns, the water landed exactly where it was supposed to.

Changes in household water pressure can affect that accuracy. If someone opens an indoor tap, the pressure outside drops. When the tap is closed, the resulting surge can briefly send the stream farther than intended.

For the most consistent results, it is best to schedule watering for a time when people are unlikely to be using much water inside the house.

Most of the water lands towards the end of the stream, but the area-watering system compensates for this by reducing the pressure on each pass. The Irrisense 2 starts at the outside of the mapped zone, then gradually pulls the stream closer.

By the end of the session, the lawn was wet across its entire surface and the surrounding plants had received a thorough watering. Coverage was far more controlled than it would have been with a conventional oscillating sprinkler.

Point watering worked equally well. When instructed to water a rose in a pot, the head rotated into position and adjusted the flow to land directly on the plant. It is a simple trick, but one that demonstrates how much more versatile the Irrisense 2 is than a standard sprinkler.

As with any system that sprays water through the air, wind remains a factor. Even a carefully mapped stream can drift in a breeze, so the weather-based scheduling controls are worth enabling.

Final thoughts

The Aiper Irrisense 2 is a clever and genuinely useful smart garden device. Its mapping system is easy to configure, its targeting is impressively accurate and the ability to manage different zones or individual plants makes it considerably more flexible than a traditional sprinkler.

It is not the neatest solution. The unit is bulky, expensive and requires permanent access to both power and water. Finding a position that provides full coverage without leaving cables and hoses trailing across the garden may also take some experimentation.

A drip-irrigation system remains the more discreet and water-efficient choice for individual beds and pots. However, it takes more effort to install and lacks the Irrisense 2’s ability to cover large areas.

For gardens that need a mix of lawn watering and targeted plant care, the Aiper Irrisense 2 is a compelling alternative. It is expensive, but it delivers smarter and more precise watering without the complexity of a permanent irrigation system.

How we test

When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.

Smart watering systems usually live within an ecosystem, or a range of products that – supposedly – all work in harmony. And they are designed to offer a range of different cleaning options. Therefore, it’s impossible to use a smart watering system for a week and deliver a verdict.

Because we’re testing smart home kit all day, everyday, we know what matters and how a particular smart watering machine compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.

Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.

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