Plants have needs. While we could argue all day long if talking to your plants yields actual results, there's no controversy surrounding the fact that plants need water. Forget to bathe them for a few days too many and watch how quickly those lively green leaves turn brown with neglect. So if you're prone to ignoring the potted inhabitants of your household, Waterbot is a free app that can help you give them the care and attention they need.

What It Does

Waterbot helps you track all of the plants in your home or garden and shoots out notifications whenever it's time to make the rounds. A simplistic user interface provides a Sims-like glance at how thirsty each plant is, so you can plan ahead and attend to them before the reminder even kicks in.

The app couldn't be any easier to use. When you first fire it up, a three-step process is provided that tells you everything you're going to need to know. An arrow points to a plus symbol in the top right corner that lets you add plants, getting the ball rolling.

Three avatars are provided, but you have the option to load up an image from your gallery or to take a photo directly. Unfortunately there's no option to name your plants, which could be a problem if you happen to have a handful spread across the house that largely look the same.

There isn't much left to do after you've chosen an avatar. Just select how many days the plant can go without being watered, and you're good to go. The app will kick you out to a list of all of your plants and show how long you have before it's time to water them again. This time is provided in the form of a loading bar, which may not be as useful as a time reading, but it's easier to glean from a glance.

There isn't much in the way of settings here. Swiping to the right will display options for setting reminders and the ability to change the order plants appear in. You can go back and modify each plant, and you may need to when the time comes to mark each plant as watered, but there isn't much else to tinker with.

Should You Download It?

If you have plants and you tend to forget to water them, Waterbot could potentially be the app you've been waiting for. It's easy enough to use that you could even recommend it to a grandparent who couldn't be less interested in technology and trust that it may help them better tend to their garden. As far as I'm concerned, there's really only one catch, and that's the lack of a paid option. The interface is attractive and largely ideal, but the glaring ads at the bottom ruin what is otherwise a painless experience. I realize that I'm in the minority with this hang-up though, so for the vast majority of forgetful plant caretakers out there, Waterbot is more than worth a look.

[EMBED_APP]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.kosev.watering[/EMBED_APP]