Invest in a Telos Growcast and you can regulate the lighting patterns of almost any grow light with your Bluetooth enabled smartphone or tablet. If your grow light has a controller port then it's almost guaranteed to be compatible.
Setting up the hardware takes just a few seconds: all you need to do is plug the unit into a controller socket. You can then use the magnetic mounting plate to fix the Growcast to a suitable spot.
An M-12 3-pin connector is included as standard, but you also get RJ11 Type 1 and Type 2 adapters, covering you for lighting fixtures from all of the top brands, including Omega, Maxibright, Lumatek, Gavita and Dimlux.
Note that there's no need to buy a Growcast for each grow light. A single unit can regulate up to 50 lighting fixtures. Once you've got one Growcast installed, use daisy-chaining cables to link up the next lights in the system.
If you want to use multiple Growcast units, that's fine, too. Growcasts can automatically communicate with each other using Bluetooth to form a mesh network; the more Growcasts there are in a given area, the more powerful the mesh network becomes.
And don't worry about security; once everything's up and running, the Growcast will be invisible to other Bluetooth devices in the vicinity. This keeps things as discreet as possible, giving you extra peace of mind.
Setting up the software is easy. Once you've downloaded and installed the Telos Mesh app, which you can get from the Apple and Android app stores, hit the create network button to get set up and give your network a name.
Choose your grow light using the dropdown menu. This will allow you to take advantage of the Growcast's Precise PPF feature.
If the exact model can't be found, you can input the PPF output and wattage manually.
The Precise PPF feature allows you to dim your lighting according to the exact PPF output and wattage, rather than as a simple percentage.
You can program on and off times, removing the need for contactors and timers, and there's also a sunrise / sunset mode that mimics the natural rise and fall of the sun, easing plants in and out of lighting cycles gradually.
The Growcast is designed and manufactured in Great Britain. Not only is it ahead of its competitors in terms of its technology, it also comes in at surprising low price point, making it a great choice for hobbyists and professionals alike.
