What The Tech : App Of The Day
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Unless youβre good at it, you may have a droopy houseplant or one with yellowing or brown leaves.
One day it looks fine, the next day you donβt know if it will live. For those without a green thumb (points thumb at himself).
I found a smartphone app called Planta that will help you care for the plants you have and tell you if the plant in the backyard is a weed or something you should keep.
Thereβs a green plant thatβs taken over my garden bed. Two of them actually and I donβt know which is a ground cover and which one is a weed. So I donβt know whether to feed it or weed it.
Planta uses my smartphone camera to snap a photo, and then it runs it through a database.
Using AI, it recognizes one as a Periwinkle I should keep, while the other is chickweed which I should dig up or kill.
Of course, Google Lens can do this to some extent. But Planta puts you in touch with millions of other users eager to help me with recommendations.
Whatβs even more useful is how Planta helps with houseplants. I have a Peace Lily plant sitting in the floor in my kitchen.
Within a week it went from a beautiful plant with green leaves and a flower to a drooping plant with brown and yellow leaves.
Planta uses a photo and asks me questions like a doctor would ask a human patient. Is the soil damp or dry?
How close does it sit to a window?Β Is it getting hot or cold air from a vent? Then shows me in detail what was wrong.
Planta offers suggestions of when it needs to be watered and fertilized and how much it needs. It also suggests I repot the plant as itβs been in the same one it came home in over 12 months ago.
Itβll even send notifications for when itβs time to water so I wonβt have to worry about timing it just right.
Planta is free with a few features but if you want to use the camera and AI, it requires a subscription thatβs $10 a month or $35 for a year.
There are Planta apps for iPhone and Android devices.
