As part of my support for the development of new innovative products for Vivent, I attended GreenTech 2016 in Amsterdam. We’re about to launch our Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for Phytl Signs Explorer: a plant monitor that’s unlike any other – because it specifically listens to what the plant itself is communicating rather than simply measuring [...]
This Saturday I attended the Cambridge University Technology Ventures Conference to showcase our product – a device for monitoring electrical signals in plants. Meeting so many bright, young people interested in technology and how they can use it to make the world a better place caused me to reflect on why I love being an [...]
Coming into Phytl Signs, I wasn’t completely sure what to expect. I’d seen startups in TV shows, such as Silicon Valley, and read about the brilliant success stories which dominate the headlines, but I had never actually envisioned the reality of a startup. I had never quite thought about the fact that actual, tangible [...]
This rather beautiful Surfinia was sitting on our dining table at home yesterday (5/June 16). As we have seen earlier with tomato plants in a greenhouse the Phytl Signs 50x recorded huge electrical activity from the plant from solar noon (2.00pm here in Switzerland) and for about two hours afterwards. There was a chirrup every few seconds [...]
Are you into hacking? I don’t mean getting into the White House server. I mean decoding the language of living beings – like plants. Just like any other organism, plants emit electrical signals – and hacking into them, using our Phytl Signs device, needs a clear signal. But once you’ve managed that, then what? [...]
We’ve had lots of questions about the process for developing our Phytl Signs device so I thought I’d tell you a bit more… The Phytl Signs team has years of experience working in telecommunications and transport. Dr Nigel Wallbridge, one of Phytl Signs inventors, was studying CANbus systems as part of his work in the [...]
Even if you love plants – or know a lot about them – you might not be familiar with the sophisticated communications networks that they use to thrive and defend themselves. Plants not as helpless as you might think. They’re constantly under attack from insects and bacteria – but they don’t just sit there and [...]
