iDOO for Dad, Hydroponics Growing System Kit 12Pods, Indoor Herb Garden, with LED Grow Light, Built-in Fan, Auto-Timer, Adjustable Height Up to 11.3", for Home School Office

This is my first indoor/hydroponic garden so I don't have anything to compare to. Thus, this review is based solely on my initial thoughts on this product. I have the 12 hole garden and received it earlier than expected. Packaging is well done and the product arrived in one piece. Nice box with quality foam packing molded to the garden inside. Once opened and removed the garden comes out in two pieces; the light panel and the main body. All other parts/accessories are packaged neatly inside the water tank area (along with the light panel arm). Assembly is easy and straightforward with well written instructions. I was able to have everything put together in less than 15 minutes including mixing the nutrients and adding seeds to the sponges. The footprint is not very large so I was able to find a corner behind my bar to give it a home. Build quality seems robust and the materials seem quality. Here is where I can't compare to the other brands, but I can assume it's close to equivalent. As for features, it isn't very high tech, no app to control anything or warnings for low water levels so of you are looking for something with less user input this may not be for you. I prefer less tech sometimes as it means less things to break and easier to modify to my needs. I've had it for two days now, so I will update this review after a few weeks once I start getting some growth. My only complaint so far is the light panels max height of around 11 inches. It limits what can be grown. However, the power for the panel is external and with a few minor modifications I think it can be extended higher to accommodate taller plants at some point. So far I am pleased with the garden and hope to be enjoying the bounty to come soon enough. I started with 6 herbs as a test (Basil,Dill,Oregano, Parsley, Cilantro, and Thyme) and will go from there.

Seriously?!? Can it get any simpler than the iDOO 12 pod indoor hydroponic herb garden?!? I had the whole thing up, planted and running in maybe an hour... My arugula sprouted in 1½ days and I woke up this morning (day 3) and the four different basils are just beginning to sprout. So... I just ordered my second iDOO from Amazon. Excellent product. Insanely easy. Very cool (literally and figuratively) using only a 23W LED panel. I highly recommend this hydroponic garden! Update 4/7/21: It's been 6 weeks since I began my adventures in hydroponics with the iDOO 12 pod indoor... and I've been extremely pleased with the results and I added two current pictures. I began by planting all 24 pods (I have 2 units) - the blank spots in the pictures are plants I've already transplanted. All of those transplants were successful but for one. I had Thai basil next to lemon basil. They had both grown so fast and so bushy that I had to transplant them; however, their respective root balls had grown so incredibly tangled that I was unable to tease them apart (at least without likely causing serious damage.) I finally decided to pick a spot midway between then and used scissors to cut straight across. End result- lemon basil thriving but the Thai basil is lingering on life support (that, in and of itself, is a good sign since today is day 3.) Additional thought: an earlier reviewer mentioned how fast basil sucks up the water. My experience is the same. I started with sweet, Thai, lemon, purple and cinnamon basil varieties and I was having to add 1 liter (between 2 units) every other day. The burn rate I experienced was just over 5 weeks to use all of the part A & B nutrients supplied in the kit so for a single unit, figure about 11 weeks. I've started the second unit's nutrients as of this posting. I've looked all over Amazon for more iDOO parts A & B nutrients and all I can find is a kit with the nutrient + sponges + baskets + covers (the latter two being non-consumables, so kind of an underhanded way to inflate the price if you ask me.) I'm intending on buying an "off-brand" variety of hydroponic nutrients from the many offered on Amazon and I'll update with my results. I figure if iDOO doesn't want to make $ selling individual consumables (if I'm not changing out a plant, I don't even need additional sponges but a plant's gotta eat, right?) then I'll go with an alternate source. (iDOO, you listening?) Other than non-support wrt the nutrient solutions ( I expect this will be of little consequence due to all the alternate sources on Amazon) I still rate this product 5 stars. The project has been fun and I'm amazed at how quickly some plants grew on a day-by-day basis! I've had no problems with the lights or pump on either unit. The timers have both been creeping forward (~20 minutes in 6 weeks being the worse between them.) It's been fun, basically automated with minimal user support-what's not to love? After all that, I forgot to add the biggest plus-an absolutely incredible constant variety of fresh herbs. I'll never go back to dried herbs because I've discovered that fresh tastes so much better! One word of caution: don't eat an entire sage leaf-WOW a little goes a long way. I like sampling all the basil varieties by eating a leaf off the plant to contrast and compare against each other so I thought I'd try that with the sage. I won't do that again.

The unit was easy to set up. clear directions for measuring hydroponic food solution. grow pods are easy to use. amazing how fast seeds germinate using hydroponics. pods slide out of sleeve without injuring sprout to transfer into planter. overall a great system.

I have never indoor gardened before and i have not even out door gardened much. I live in an apartment and this seemed like a neat way to get a little taste. Hydro is a lot different then soil but properly maintained i believe it is a much easier solution to plants then dirt. You do have to learn a bit about PH and EC in your water. after that it's much better then soil because you don't have to worry about over or under watering in hydro. As for this device! I have been growing plants in it for 36 days only. I was a little skeptical but it actually works very well. Especially for lettuce or low growing crops. The kale i had wanted to grow way too tall so i had to keep trimming the stalks even though it was a "dwarf" variety. The peppers are starting to flower already. I could stop them but i will let them go. The issues with the device for me are these. The holes are too close together. there might be 12 spots for plants but unless you are growing micro greens you can only realistically keep 4ish full grown plants in there otherwise they would be way too cramped. As you can see in my picture it is pretty cramped and i have 7 plants in there. The height of the LED lamp only goes so high. meaning if you want tall bushy pepper plants this device is obviously not it. This last one is a small issue but i wanted to be able to grow the plants with out using the stickers included but after doing some tests with and without stickers it seems the stickers are pretty important for a couple reasons. being mold and plant stem support. a long with that i found the plants i didn't use the sticker with were more likely to stem split and they all have white mildew on top of the plugs All in all if you are growing some lettuce for some turtles like me or maybe some short pepper plants. This device will do it. Plants i have grown in here and some i transplanted out are. Three varieties of pepper, leaf lettuce, dwarf kale, catmint, marigold, zinnia, lizzies. no plant has died being in the hydro device

Update: So far, I've had to remove nearly all of the original plants from the iDOO and replant them into actual pots. The roots ended up a tangled mess from cherry tomato plants and everything else inside of the machine. It took a while to untangle them all carefully. The tomato plants were a bit top heavy after a few weeks and kept falling over in the iDOO. They also got too tall and the lights were burning the leaves. Since the lights won't go up very high, this is not an ideal machine for any sort of tomato plant or plant that is not some sort of dwarf or miniature variant. It's very good for starting plants, but you'll end up going through lots of the little plastic baskets since you can't get the roots off of them without damaging the plants for replanting very easily. It's best to replant them before the roots get too long and just plant the whole sponge in the dirt. I think if you let your plants go for too long in this, the roots would eventually bind up in the system. Due to this, it seems only good for short term planting and harvesting/re-planting. Original Review: I planted all sorts of veggies in this thing as soon as it arrived and they are already growing so fast! I cannot wait to see the results :) I planted seeds from the same batches in small pots at the same time I planted in this indoor garden to see which ones would grow better. The dirt method is definitely much slower. You can see from the photos. I did add another set of grow lights since my apartment doesn't get much natural sun light.

I got this for Christmas; my wife bought it through our shared Amazon account so I'm hoping this review will show up as a verified purchase. I seeded 6 pods on 29 December 2022, four with kale and two with lettuce. Those are the plants you can see growing so abundantly in the photo taken on 21 January 2023. I seeded the other six pods on 13 January 2023, three with arugula, two with cilantro, and one with basil. The arugula are up and looking fine, though still small. The basil is just peeking up now. The cilantro has yet to raise its head. Here are my thoughts: The unit was very easy to set up. I found the instructions to be quite clear. Seeding the sponges and putting the sponges in the baskets was straightforward. The only problem I had was the instructions to put only 3 or 4 seeds per sponge. Most of the seeds I'm working with are so tiny that the best I can do is shake the packet over the sponge and hope that the right number fall into the hole. I ended up overseeding most of the pods, meaning I had to do some serious thinning once the plants were up. Because this will be my first crop and I'm still feeling my way, I have a few unresolved questions: My kale and lettuce look about ready to harvest now, even though they have only been growing for three weeks. Their seed packets say they take 40-50 days to harvest when planted in soil. Do they really grow that much faster in a hydroponics unit? Should I start harvesting now, or wait some more? As you top off the water, which has to be done fairly often as the plants grow, you have to add more of the nutrients that come with the kit. When you replace all of the water in the tank, which the instructions say should be done a week or so after the plants have been growing awhile, you also have to add nutrients. I can see that if I want to have ongoing crops throughout the year, I will have to be buying more nutrients, which aren't particularly cheap. So my question is: Will this be a cost-effective way to have fresh greens for my table, vs. buying at the supermarket, or merely a fun (and potentially expensive) hobby? In summary: I'm quite pleased with IDOO unit itself. However, I'm unsure whether or not in the long run hydroponics will be a cost-effective way of growing food.

Tips Buy the large version (12-pot) if your space allows. Otherwise buy the 7-pot. Both are excellent. Summary Easy to begin even to novices. Simple setup and instructions. Good flexibility for different kind of plants. I have both previous gen (7 pots) and this (12 pots), so I will provide some comparisons in addition to comments. This has many improvements comparing to 7-pot version. However, 7-pot version still have some advantages. While I recommend both 7-pot and 12-pot versions, you should check which suit your space. Pros 1. Upgraded capacity (12 pots) comparing to previous gen 2. Automatic lighting (12on/12off) with simplified (flower or veggie) settings. You don’t need to worry about how to setup and just choose what you need. 3. Easier light height adjustment. Better mechanism comparing to previous gen 4. Easier water filling. Transparent window for water level (does not exist in previous gen). You don’t need to open the cover to check water level anymore. 5. Easier handling. There are 2 hidden handles under the tank, which make it easy to move. (Does not exist in previous gen) 6. Brighter than previous gen, which can lead to improved productivities. Cons 1. Significant larger than previous gen (7 pots) in depth (more than 2x larger due to pot arrangements). 2. The range of led height is not as large as previous gen (7 pots), and the highest setting is lower (which will limit the max height of your plant). 3. The fan make it louder during operation than previous gen (7 pots). 4. There is no cable management for the LED, cable are just exposed. (No cable to the LED in previous gen)

Good so far!

Whole family have one now! Never run out of herbs!

Good

J'ai reçu cette petite serre d'intérieur pour mon anniversaire et j'en suis plutôt satisfaite pour le moment (2 mois) La mise en place est plutôt facile Le manuel explique très bien comment tout fonctionne avec des images Il y a une alimentation secteur (qui doit être branchée 24h sur 24) Et un câble qui va de la pompe jusqu'en haut de la serre Les éponges de culture sont fournies, ainsi que les supports d'éponges, les capuchons a mettre dessus et les petits panneaux pour savoir ce qu'on plante Il y a aussi deux nutriments avec, à diluer avec de l'eau au moment du remplissage du bac, bien utiles pour que les plants se développent vite ⚠️Par contre il n'y a aucune graine vendues avec, il faudra les acheter en même temps que la serre Deux modes possibles : - fruits & fleurs - légumes La serre s'allume et s'éteint seule à la fin de ses cycles, une fois le cycle lancée il n'y a plus rien à faire, à part renouveller l'eau tous les 14 jours environ Pour l'instant, j'ai eu quelques beaux plants : basilic, melon, pastèque que j'ai pu replanter La croissance dépend de la saison, du temps, des types de graines.. certaines poussent au bout d'un ou deux jours quand d'autres mettent 2 semaines à commencer Le niveau sonore est pour moi pas du tout dérangeant quand le niveau d'eau est sur 4 L minimum (plus le niveau d'eau baisse, plus la pompe sera bruyante) Je recommande donc ce produit qui est facile d'utilisation, d'entretien et qui fait très bien ce qu'on attend de lui 😁

Au bout de seulement 2 jours mes graines avaient déjà germé . Sur les photos ça fait 1 mois et j’ai déjà fait un bol de salade là dessus . C’est vraiment merveilleux . J’adore ce système IDOO. Il faut savoir que si vous avez un puit vous devez prendre de l’eau distillée . Je recommande fortement ce produit. J’avais un Click and Grow avant et ce n’est pas comparable. Celui ci a un filtrer qui fait bouger l’eau. L’avantage aussi est qu’on peut acheter un kit de graine de diverse sorte de légume et simplement les mettres dans les pods . Quand ma salade va être fini je vais essayer de laissé un pods de libre entre chaque salade Cesar car elle devient vraiment grosse . Vous ne serez vraiment pas déçu de votre achat. Je l’ai acheté en spécial au Black Friday, peut-être qu’il sera encore en spécial au Boxing Day pour les intéressés .

LED Light Panel stopped working after 6 months.