Tag Archives: Arun Raj

Kickstarter’s tiny self-watering herb planter is back with a bigger, better design

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After 15 months of lockdown, I can barely take care of myself, leave alone my plants. My sleep habits are completely haywire, my junk-food intake is off the charts, and I won’t lie, I’ve skipped quite a few baths. The point I’m making (apart from the fact that I’m kind of disgusting) is that taking care of plants is a TASK. It requires dedication, effort, and involvement which comes naturally to some… but for others, there’s Pico.

Pico first appeared on the scene last year as an incredibly compact and versatile self-watering planter. It was tiny enough to attach to your fridge like a fridge-magnet, and all you had to do was put the seeds in and watch them grow on their own. Pico not only automatically watered your plants for you, it automatically gave them sunlight too, taking care of practically all of your plant’s needs. After gathering over $1.5 million in crowdfunding last year, the designers behind Pico decided it was time for Pico to have an elder sibling – Meet the Pico Max, a compact, self-growing planter that turns your kitchen counter into a kitchen garden. From herbs to fruits, veggies, sprouts, succulents, and even leafy greens, Pico Max manages it all.

If last year’s Pico was for enthusiasts looking to dip their toes in gardening, Pico Max helps them take gardening more seriously by actually cultivating plants that serve as decor, natural air-purifiers, or as kitchen ingredients. It comes with a wider gardening bed than its predecessor, allowing you to grow even more plants than before. The planter itself comes in a funky set of colors that add vibrance to your decor, and have an integrated window on the front that lets you observe the planter’s water level. Each Pico Max comes with its own dedicated water reservoir and the plant basically waters itself as and when it needs. All you really do is replenish the water reservoir every couple of days and you’re good to go!

Just like the original Pico planter, the Pico Max comes with its own LED lights that auto-switch on/off and auto-dim to give your plants the light they need to photosynthesize. The LED panel is carefully calibrated to mimic sunlight, and the entire panel sits on telescopic arms that let you adjust the LED’s height as the plants keep growing taller and taller. Each Pico Max runs on a 10,000 mAh battery that gives the planter 4 days’ worth of power at a stretch… although they can also be connected to a power source (quite like a smart speaker) for 24×7 use, and even linked together in series so that one plug-point can supply power to multiple Pico Max planters.

Using the Pico Max is as easy as making instant noodles – the planter comes with an optional all-in-one microgreen kit that contains the seeds, nutrients, and the growth medium. Just place the seeds in the growth medium and add water to the reservoir and your plant begins sprouting in a week. The planter can be placed on flat surfaces or even wall-mounted to add a splash of green to your space. Just like the original Pico, you can attach the planter to your refrigerator too, giving you a one-stop destination for fresh ingredients. You can use the Pico Max to grow practically anything – from fragrant flowers to succulents and even veggies and herbs. Pico Max’s extensively tested design takes the guesswork out of gardening, so all you need to do is focus on showing everyone else what a great plant-parent you are!

Designer: Arun Raj

Click Here to Buy Now: $75 $115 (36% off). Hurry, only 39/100 left! Raised over $275,000.

Pico Max – Grow a Garden Anywhere!

Pico Max is a bigger, better, and smarter version of Pico. It has telescopic LED lights, multiple mounts, and a self-watering system. With a click, anyone can grow a thriving garden.

Inbuilt Self-watering

Pico Max can sustain certain plants for up to ten days. It has a new inbuilt spout to top up the much bigger reservoir. The transparent window lets you know when it’s time to top up, typically once a week. Employing just capillary action and gravity, this design does not require any power supply or involve a motor or pump. Your plants will also grow quicker and healthier due to root oxygenation from below, provided by the ventilation holes.

Telescopic LED Grow Lights

Powered by high-performance power-efficient LEDs from OSRAM, Pico Max provides all the necessary wavelengths of light to replace the sun completely and allows you to grow plants all year round. These powerful LEDs are chosen to support a wide range of plants and each color wavelength stimulates a specific biological function in plants.

The LEDs are mounted on an easily adjustable telescopic arm—because plants grow like crazy under our LEDs! Now they come with an Industry-first Proximity Sensor-based automatic dimming function, to protect the plants from leaf burn or overexposure.

Multi-mount System

The revised mounting system involves one magnetic mount on the Pico Max and a mating multipurpose metal bracket, which could be mounted on a wall/ glass/ mirror using adhesive tapes or on magnetized surfaces like refrigerator doors or kitchen cabinets. With the optional battery, you could even showcase your beauties in places with no power outlets.

Daisy-chain Connections

With three USB Type-C ports, two in the bottom and one on the top, daisy-chaining is much easier. Just connect cables to either side, and Pico Max will accept and pass-through power to the next one, with the least wire clutter.

What Can You Grow?

Click Here to Buy Now: $75 $115 (36% off). Hurry, only 39/100 left! Raised over $275,000.

A SpaceX Travel Card sure to shock and awe every space enthusiast on Earth!

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Move away Mars, we have set sights for Jupiter. Or at least graphics designer Arun Raj has! Bringing all our nerdy space-themed love to life, Arun has created a TravelCard that can be used to book a travel plan and double up as a ticket to a visit to the moon, Mars, Saturn, and even Jupiter! You may call that ambitious, but hey, what are we without the power to dream?

While I am guilty of watching every live stream that SpaceX does (and I literally cheered when the Dragon 2 latched onto the ISS successfully) I would love to get my hands on this card whether or not I can afford the $100K ticket price! Posting to the r/SpaceXLounge on Reddit, the SpaceX Travel card shows the easy and fun interactions in the process of booking a ticket to Mars. Visually the card is similar in size to a credit card and fits in one hand, making it easy to access all the touchpoints on the card. While this is a paper mock-up, we can imagine a slim enough e-ink screen that will allow for the technology to carry this. Launch the booking process with fingerprint identification and specify your current location as well as destination – we have to sometimes return from the moon as well. The rest of it is like every ticket booking process – choose your travel date, the number of people traveling and the card auto-updates your arrival date. Arun audaciously doesn’t show the payment interface where we make this $1500K payment – although given how you’re booking a ticket to Jupiter, I presume your SpaceX currency would be pre-loaded or maybe they have a PayPal integration! Hit book now, and you have a nostalgic, movie ticket-like stub that shows your travel details.

 

Designer: Arun Raj of armedialabs

You can attach this palm-sized self-watering herb planter to the side of your fridge!

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I couldn’t possibly articulate it better than designers Arun and Karanvir, who call the Pico “the farm that fits in your palm”! It’s an elegant (and frankly accurate) way to describe this portable, self-watering planter that’s small enough to be attached to the side of your fridge for the freshest, healthiest produce ever.

The Pico is a tiny self-contained, self-watering planter with its own lighting unit that’s portable enough to be placed anywhere, from a kitchen countertop, to even mounted on a wall. Slightly smaller than an Amazon Echo, the Pico lets you access fresh herbs and produce faster than you can say “Hey Alexa”, because it’s designed to be your own personal kitchen garden!

The Pico planter is a smaller, more effective, and more convenient sibling of last year’s Herbstation, which led the movement to empower people to grow their own greens. Given that as much as 50% of your greens’ nutrition gets lost from the time it is harvested to the time it takes to reach your plate, and that you never really know where the produce you buy is actually coming from, Pico was designed let you grow your own greens in the freshest of conditions, without any chemicals or wastage, and for free! It’s tiny, portable, and frankly adorable design is reminiscent of a Tamagotchi, but here’s where things were designed to get easier. The Pico actually comes with its own sun-mimicking growth light and a self-watering reservoir, so you literally have to do the bare minimum of charging it and replenishing the water supply once every week and the plant practically grows itself.

Moreover, the Pico is designed to be convenient and portable. Why’s that important, you ask? Because most people don’t like the idea of a kitchen garden because it sounds ‘messy’. By being small, mess-free, and so convenient you could have multiple planters around your home, Pico takes the hassle out of growing your own herbs. It’s as small as a Smart-Speaker, which means you can place it on any desk or tabletop, and it also comes with a variety of attachments on the back, from magnets to wall-mount hooks, to even velcro, allowing you to stick the planter on your fridge, cupboard, wall, or even a soft-board. Moreover, the lighting unit comes with a telescopic attachment that you can expand as your plant continues to grow upwards!

Ultimately, Pico’s job is to make botany convenient and accessible. While the very idea of the Pico was to grow microgreens in your kitchen, you can use it to grow decorative flowers or even air-purifying plants. Its self-watering, self-lighting technology does the hard work for you, leaving you with the job of just admiring your plants as they grow on their own, and occasionally dipping in to grab a handful of the freshest herbs to garnish your food with!

Designer: Arun Raj

Click Here to Buy Now: $29 $45 (35% off). Hurry, only 1/280 left! Raised over $70,000.

Pico: A Garden in your Palm

Get plant parenting right with Pico – with telescopic LED grow lights, multiple mounts, and a self-watering system.

The Problem with Plants

While having plants is immensely rewarding—both mentally and physically—it is not always easy.

Pico – No More Guess Work!

Don’t worry about under-watering or overwatering. Don’t worry about them not getting enough sunlight or being too exposed. Be it edibles, succulents or ornamentals, Pico knows what your plants need.

This little thing.

Transforms into this.

And has some cool LED grow lights.

Sticks anywhere, waters itself and grows anything!

Pico Features

Your Personal Sun

Thanks to Pico’s multi-spectrum LED grow lights, giving your plant enough light isn’t a problem anymore.

Powered by high-performance power-efficient LEDs from OSRAM, Pico provides all the necessary wavelengths of light to replace the sun completely, and allow you to grow plants all year round.

These powerful LEDs are chosen to support a wide range of plants and each color wavelength stimulates a specific biological function in plants.

The LEDs are mounted on an easily-adjustable telescopic arm—because plants grow like crazy under our LEDs! Reminiscent of a vintage radio antenna, it grows alongside your plants. As they extend upwards towards the light, extend Pico by up to a foot in height.

The aluminum heatsink makes the LED module rigid and lightweight; it also helps the LED chips last longer through its excellent heat dissipation.

Self-watering System

Pico’s watering system makes sure your plants have as much water as they need—no more, no less—to sustain their health and beauty. All you need to do is pour water in once a week.

Like the roots of your plants pulling water through the soil towards them, through capillary action, Pico wicks the water from the reservoir into the soil. As your plants soak up the water, Pico just feeds them more. This ensures that they never dry out or are left to rot in too much water.

Employing just capillary action and gravity, this design does not require any power supply or involve a motor or pumps.

Place Your Plants Anywhere

With 3 interchangeable mounts (magnetic, velcro and wall mount), you can grow anywhere.

With its USB Type-C ports on both sides, you can chain multiple Picos together and build yourself an indoor jungle! Just connect cables to either side, and each Pico will accept and pass-through power to the next one.

Grow Anything You Like

With Pico, they made sure to get all variables just right, so you can grow your favorite herbs at home without a hassle.

Available in Tangy orange, Oh-so-lemon and Krispy mint.

Click Here to Buy Now: $29 $45 (35% off). Hurry, only 1/280 left! Raised over $70,000.

You know what’s quicker than telling Alexa to order you herbs? Growing them!

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As easy as it is to tell Alexa to order you a bag of parsley, it’s even easier to walk up to your kitchen-garden and pluck a few parsley leaves yourself. Altifarm’s new product Herbstation is on a mission is to give you the convenience of fresh produce right in your home! This decorative, autonomous-watering home farm can be placed anywhere in your house. Its intuitive system design allows the plant to grow without you getting yourself tied-in, and gives you the satisfaction of having the freshest produce available to you, right in your home!

Herbstation comes with a patent-pending self-watering system and a two-part grow tub design, crafted out of high-density polyethylene, with a form that’s inspired by the symmetry of pottery and with textures of ceramic and wood. Designed to work all year round, Herbstation grows your plants for you, using a specially calibrated set of LEDs to even mimic sunlight in low-light areas, giving your plant everything it needs. Just fill water into its reservoir and its system does the rest letting the Herbstation sustain the plant while elevating your decor with an understated elegance.

Herbstation joins the ranks of a growing movement to farm as much of your produce as you can. Given that as much as 50% of your greens’ nutrition gets lost from the time it is harvested to the time it takes to reach your plate, and that you never really know where your fruits and vegetables are actually coming from, Herbstation’s solution is simple as it is effective. Grow your own herbs and veggies, and they’ll literally be the freshest they can be! The self-watering grow kit is perfect for micro-greens, herbs, sprouts, garnish-greens, and even heirloom fruits and vegetables. The versatile Herbstation can be ordered as a standalone counter top unit or as a floor-standing triple kit, or a wall-mounting double. A clear window lets you know how much water is in Herbstation’s reservoir, and you can keep replenishing it every couple of days, while the magnetic LED grow lights can be raised or lowered to manage its intensity.

Ultimately, the Herbstation is accommodating to your needs. From fruits, veggies, herbs, to even flowers, the Herbstation can autonomously grow them all. The planter itself is designed to work with soil as you always did or soil-less hydroponically with peat, and even with seed pods, transforming your indoor or even outdoor space into a greenhouse that is capable of self-sustenance… as well as easy to access from the kitchen every time you need some absolutely fresh veggies or herbs for your delicious meals!

Designers: Arun Raj & Karanvir Pathania

Click Here to Buy Now: $249 $399 ($150 off). Hurry, only 1/20 Left!

Herbstation: The Easiest Way to Grow at Home

A compact & beautiful home farm that elevates your decor & grows fresh produce year-round, using garden soil or soil-less hydroponics. Grow herbs at home effortlessly, with no subscription or recurring costs involved.

Cost of seeds: $3. Output Weight: 10.5 oz. Output Market Price: $30.

Most new grow systems are either a token effort or are very demanding from the user. Others are subscription-based or expensive to run. Herbstation is here to change that and help you grow like a pro.

Grows fresh herbs, veggies and microgreens all year round. Herbstation is easy to use and harvesting fresh produce is super fun!

How it Works

With their patent-pending self-watering system, all you need to do is just top up the water level every weekend or so. It stores water for 7-10 days and provides for on-demand watering, using capillary action and gravity. With root aeration, your plants will grow quicker and healthier. Also, our LED grow lights gives 100% autonomy from sunlight.

No pump/motor/power connection for water circulation and no clogging/sedimentation. No pH or conductivity check and no fungus/algae or damp corners at home.

Automatic on-demand watering, also helps with root oxygenation for healthier plants.

Below: Herbstation Features

Complete autonomy from sunlight. From seeds to harvest, all under grow lights.

1) Magnetic LED Grow Lights:

– 3W High-power, energy efficient OSRAM chip LEDs with custom secondary optics.
– Full spectrum White + Far Red + Deep Blue wavelengths.
– Magnetic Mounting, first time in the industry.
– Daisy Chain wiring kit + IP65 rated water-proof driver/ power supply.

By providing plants exactly the wavelengths that are required for various growth stages, we boost their growth while reducing power consumption and eliminate wasted heat energy.

Fill it, shut it, forget it – for a week or more!

2) In-built Self Watering Tech:

– Stores water for 7-10 days and waters on demand, automatically.
– Works with gravity/ capillary action. No electricity, water connection, or pump involved.
– No under watering or over watering, no guesswork.
– Better root oxygenation for healthier plant growth.

With so many plants to choose from, you have several possibilities to go with.

3) Push Button Height Adjustment:

– One touch height adjustment with auto-locking.
– Multiple heights and positions to choose from to suit a wide range of plants.
– Ergonomic positioning and gives plants easy access to grow lights.

Always take the weather with you!

4) Greenhouse for Winters:

– Protects plants from extreme climate; regulates temperature, humidity and CO2.
– Roll-up doors with zipper and velcro closure.
– Limited protection from pets, children and certain pests.

It’s so easy, everyone will like to move it, move it!

5) Mobile Pack for Relocation:

– Neat design with discrete spherical wheels.
– Includes position locking and height-leveling mechanisms.

Herbstation Countertop is compact & light and fits anywhere.

Below: Three Ways To Grow

1. Soil-based: Grow like you always did – use soil from the yard or buy from a store and use seeds , seedlings or plant cuttings. You may fortify it with manure, fertilizer or compost. Inbuilt self-watering system will water from below the soil using capillary action, and you need not worry about watering for 7-10 days.

2. Soil-less: Grow like an expert – use a sterile medium like coco-peat or rock-wool and mix hydroponic nutrients in water, for unbelievably quick plant growth. You need to check all parameters of water and nutrients thoroughly. Watering is through self-watering system as above, no pumps or circulation involved.

3. Seed Pod: Grow for fun – get growing with the least effort, using Seed-pods with pre-infused nutrients, from certain manufacturers. All you need to do is to drop the pod (which comes with seeds) into the self-watering cones in the Herbstation and add water.

Three Variants to Choose From

If growing edibles is not your thing, you may grow garden plants on Herbstation- ornamental and florals, exotics and medicinal varieties, succulents or #plantsofinstagram. Whatever you may choose, our ingenious Self-watering and LED grow lights would let your plants thrive.

What Can You Grow?

Grow microgreens, salads, herbs to certain varieties of root vegetables like carrots and beetroot. Even growing tall plants is possible as tub heights are easily adjustable. Only limitations might be those with very deep roots.

The Magic of Microgreens

Microgreens are the most sought-after super foods now. Studies show that microgreens pack 40 times the nutrients than a full-grown plant. They are easy to digest, offer an intense flavor and rich nutrition, and are versatile to use.

Spun-off from a product design studio, design and innovation is at the heart of everything the design teams do.

Product Development Journey

Herbstation is a distillation of everything we have learned with interaction with Altifarmers in 5 continents, while Altifarm itself came to life in 4 years. We have obsessed over every little detail and fine-tuned every function to make Herbstation a complete indoor gardening solution. Barring LED chips and driver, every single item in the box is custom manufactured to our specifications. This includes special polymer blends and coatings; even the PVC/PE film for the greenhouse is made to order and then tailored by our supplier.

1) Ideation 2)CAD Modelling 3) Machined Prototype 4) 3D Printed Prototype 5) Growlight Development 6) Pilot Production through RTV molding

Working prototype.

In detail.

Tubs are identical across variants

Why Herbstation

Do you know that the loss of nutritive value of certain food items is more than 50% from farm to fork? Or that food travels for over 1500 miles on an average and has a significant carbon footprint? Also that the crop varieties in commercial farming are prioritized for shelf life and not for nutrition, while we miss out on local, organic and heirloom varieties of plant varieties.

Homegrown produce is rich in nutrients, especially in phytochemicals, anti-oxidants, vitamin C, vitamin A and folates. There’s only the joy, pride and delightful consumption with no chemicals, pesticides or GMO to worry about. Besides it’s a great way to engage the whole family- particularly children, in an enjoyable hobby, while connecting with nature.

Click Here to Buy Now: $249 $399 ($150 off). Hurry, Only 1/20 Left!