10125934Pre Commercialisation Farmer CharlieClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKUK SME Farmer Charlie is proposing soil sensors for plants, herbs, vegetables, fruits grown indoors and outdoors, making farming easy. The indoor soil sensor connects to Wi-Fi and is nicely designed to embellish any home. The outdoor sensor, equally pretty, is plug and play (4G/5G - the SIM card valid for all UK networks is ready to use), GPS-localised, can be powered by a small solar panel. Both have a 3-year battery life. Our user-friendly and elegant app helps anyone become a confident farmer. The sensors are developed to be sustainable. Their casing is made of British bioplastic. There is a free return of the sensors at the end of their life. One sensor can be used by several users as invited by the sensor owner, making the sensor an easy tool to help farming in allotments, shared gardens and in remote places, without the need to constantly check when best watering plants, vegetables, fruits and herbs. The sensors are manufactured in UK, for better quality, shorter supply chain. Further sensors will eventually be added to the family, but to start with, our star sensors are measuring soil humidity and temperature. Growing vegetables in your own patch, raised bed, pot or allotment is easy thanks to Farmer Charlie's targeted advice, which also saves water, fertilizer and pesticide, reminding you when to water your plant based on the actual plant's need. Farming in cities and in a closed circular economy contributes to reducing the carbon emissions due to traditional agriculture, limiting deforestation, reducing transport emissions. The sensor will be available for purchase on our website and Amazon and directly delivered to you. We are also looking at supplying garden centres and home centres. We are present on various social media, providing tips and updates, and we hope you will engage with our community. Our story started when we helped smallholder farmers in remote areas in emerging countries with their farming activities to reduce wastes. Concluded in March 2024, our last project, Energy Catalyst 9 Cool Mangoes, adapted our soil sensors to monitor temperature and humidity in refrigerated containers. This prevents the mango cooperative staff from checking the temperature every hour, avoiding the door to stay ajar unattended, and saving energy. Farmer Charlie is a member of the UK agritech sector, including Agri-Tech-E, Agri-EPI-centre. We are member of the International Society of Precision Agriculture. With Farmer Charlie, everyone is a farmer!