“Good Design Is Fundamentally Accessible” – Canadian Smart Lawn System OtO Takes the Heavy Lifting Out of Yard Care

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A Canadian company has built a smart outdoor device that waters and treats a lawn on its own, and its founder argues that the thinking behind it was accessible from the start — even though accessibility was never the brief.

OtO is a hose-connected unit that handles irrigation and what the company calls fertigation: the timed application of fertiliser, mosquito and tick repellent, and other treatments. Founder and CEO Ali Sabti joined Double Tap’s Steven Scott and Marc Aflalo on our AMI-tv sister show Access Tech Live.

“OtO is a smart outdoor device that simplifies and automates the application of water and different yard care solutions,” Sabti said. “Really simple to install — it just requires a hose connection and a Wi-Fi, and then a user goes onto their phone, sets up the different areas they want to cover, and then OtO will take care of the rest.”

The device reads weather conditions and decides how much water to put down and where, skipping a cycle entirely if rain is coming.

“Good design is fundamentally accessible”

Steven asked the question the show always asks: did disabled users ever enter the design conversation?

Sabti did not claim they had been the focus. “Look, candidly, it’s not like it was the focus,” he said. “But there’s a core belief within OtO, and it’s very similar how we view accessibility — like we view sustainability. Because we designed the device from the ground up, good design is accessible, good design is sustainable.”

That meant considering vision, mobility, dexterity, hearing and cognitive load when thinking about who the user would be. “Good design to us is fundamentally accessible.”

The practical effect, he said, is that the system absorbs the physically demanding and easily forgotten parts of lawn care. “What OtO is supposed to do is kind of take care of the heavy lifting for folks with limited abilities, or even folks that are prone to forgetting. It allows the user to really just go out there and enjoy their yard and do some of the light work like pruning.”

Internally the company talks about “democratising yard care”. As Sabti put it, the job previously required both knowing what you were doing and being able-bodied enough to do it consistently.

Water, and what else goes on the grass

Asked whether automated watering can be defended environmentally, Sabti argued the device cuts consumption rather than adding to it, by putting water only where it is needed and only when soil moisture and the forecast justify it.

He was equally interested in what else ends up on a lawn. Treating little and often, he said, lets the system use botanical oils instead of synthetics, and timing applications around the weather reduces runoff into waterways.

There is a pet angle too. For households with dogs, particularly in warmer climates or on synthetic turf, OtO can dispense an enzyme cleaner in small frequent doses to break down odour.

Marc Aflalo, who runs two OtO units at his own home, described drawing the watering map directly on the phone screen. Sabti said most customers are set up within ten minutes of opening the box.

Resources

• OtO: otolawn.com