ET Water™ Wins Prestigious Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award For 2006
Corte Madera, Calif., (September 11, 2006) — Technology and innovation have teamed up with water conservation; it's a marriage that's set ET Water's smart controller apart from industry competition, and recognized it as an award-winner by the Wall Street Journal, the world's leading business publication.
ET Water Systems, LLC of Corte Madera, CA, was chosen as the Winner in the Environment category of the Journal's Technology Innovation Awards contest today. The annual awards recognize technological breakthroughs by individuals, companies and organizations. This year, more than 600 entries from two dozen countries around the world —— including Israel, Japan, United Kingdom, U.S., Canada and Singapore —— competed to showcase their breakthroughs in environment, multimedia, biotechnology, security, energy and other categories.
An outside panel of judges chose ET Water and the other category winners, who will be honored at an awards dinner October 17 in conjunction with Dow Jones Emerging Ventures Conference in San Jose, CA.
Bruce Cardinal, founder and chief executive officer of ET Water Systems and Gordon Stewart, chief technology officer, conceived the general design of the winning technology, a smart landscape irrigation system that combines horticulture science, real—time weather data and Web technology to optimize and automate irrigation.
Cardinal says these controllers are "radically different from what's conventionally been done in the industry" because they automatically adjust watering based on real time weather conditions and users can monitor and control their watering from a website.
The system uses proprietary scheduling algorithms and local weather data to send daily irrigation schedules, tailored for each irrigation zone, to on—site controllers. So, plants get the right amount of water at the right time — no more, no less. This virtually eliminates all over—watering and runoff, thus cutting water use by 20 to 50 percent.
"Water agency and EPA studies show 60 percent of urban water consumption is outside the house and a large portion of landscape irrigation is excess and wasted," says Cardinal. "Reducing over watering with smart controllers is recognized as the best opportunity for Western and Southwestern states to preserve water resources and reduce pollution from excess runoff."
ET Water's smart irrigation controllers won in the Environment category for "fundamentally different" architecture and design, says Cardinal. "Other controllers have the 'brains' in the on-site controller. Our patent—pending system has the brains in the central server. We have 50—plus patent claims related to the advantages of our design. This product represents huge potential for the water industry."
Before ET Water, 97 percent or more of all irrigation controllers were simple "clocks" that ran the sprinklers for each landscape zone for a pre—set time, one to seven times per week. The schedule was only as good as the horticulture and irrigation expertise of the person setting the schedule. "The majority of users only adjust their controller once or twice a year even though the weather is constantly changing. The result is excess irrigation, less than optimum plant health, and a phenomenal waste of water and runoff that carries fertilizers and pesticides into waterways," says Cardinal.
In 2005, ET Water also entered into an exclusive agreement with WeatherBug, operator of the nation's largest network of 24 x 7 monitored professional weather stations. These 8,000—plus stations, combined with several thousand national and state weather stations, provide ET Water with highly localized weather data in major metro areas across the country.
According to Wall Street Journal panelists, entries were judged on two criteria: Does the innovation represent a breakthrough from conventional ideas or methods in its field, and does it go beyond incremental improvements in technologies that already exist?
About ET Water
ET Water Systems, LLC (ET Water, the "Company") was founded in Marin County, California, in the fall of 2002 by experienced high-tech entrepreneurs with a passion for protecting the environment. The ET Water system qualified for a number of water agency rebate programs; in November 2004 ET's smart controller became the first product to successfully complete the Irrigation Industry Association's rigorous "Smart Water Application Technology" protocol testing. In 2005, the Company began the process of forging key relationships with homebuilders, commercial landscapers, property managers, and distribution channel partners. View ET Water's flash demo at www.etwater.com
Press Contacts
Dwain Schenck, ICA
Phone: 800-835-9292
Email: dschenck@ica-online.com
Steve Snow, ET Water
Phone: 415-357-5146
Email: ssnow@etwater.com