“And to make matters worse, if you have a prolonged power outage, you may need to manually water or have a generator to keep the water pump going, else you may injure your crops.”
A Raspberry Pi, a few sensors and open-source software run the pH, the nutrients and the pumps. Startups raise venture rounds to sell the same idea with nicer branding. One guy documented the whole build for free. The weak point is the same for both. Lose power and the plants die.