IFA 2025 Round-Up: Smart Houseplant Tech On Display In Berlin

While perusing the various booths during my third day at IFA, I learned that not having a green thumb is no longer an excuse to avoid growing plants at home. While there wasn't much houseplant-related tech at this year's convention – at least not many that I could find – the ones I did notice gave me hope I'll one day end my track record of killing the beautiful plants I bring home. Devices from Willow, Grovero, and Hello Tomorrow seemed easy to use, included apps to help track your plant's health and progress, and featured simple designs that can blend seamlessly with your home's aesthetic.

From reducing stress to providing a natural element, there are several reasons why more and more people want houseplants. According to Custom Market Insights, the indoor plant market is expected to increase by $11.38 billion by 2034, especially in North America, where smart gardening tech is helping increase consumers' interest in filling both commercial and residential spaces with greenery. These three companies provided a quick rundown of how their products work and why those interested in purchasing houseplants might find their technology useful.

Designed with the help of Michelin chefs, Grovero's MiniGro was created to help those in commercial and residential kitchens yield plenty of greens, herbs, and flowers. With this device, which was released at the beginning of 2025, you can harvest from your plants within six to 10 days. All you have to do is select the seeds you'd like to grow, register them to the Grovero app to track your plant's health and progress, and add them to a mesh tray before placing them into the rectangular device. The roots grow through the mesh tray and reach the water below, eliminating the need for soil.

The MiniGro can be placed anywhere in your home, as long as it's at room temperature. However, it seems like the kitchen may be your best bet if you're hoping for a consistently fresh supply of greens for cooking. And if you don't have space on the countertop, you can simply hang it up on the wall, which I think is more aesthetically pleasing.

A plant that giggles when you tickle it is definitely not something I expected to see at IFA this year. Hello Tomorrow's PlantPetz are robotic planters that can make your plants dance to music and react to your touch. For example, if you were to tickle its leaves, the roots would trigger the sensor, which would then cause the planter to giggle. Or, you can connect your phone via Bluetooth and play a song that it can dance to.

What's more, the device comes with a moisture sensor that triggers the planter to play a bubbling noise when it is in need of more water. If watering your plant is something you constantly forget, having your plant alert you with a loud noise may be what keeps it alive. According to a Hello Tomorrow representative at the booth, the constant motion can help make the plant's stem stronger so that it grows straighter while also helping the leaves grow fully throughout the plant's entire circumference. PlantPetz was released in the U.S. in January and is expected to enter the European market in about six to eight weeks.

The complicated thing about plants is that each one has different needs in terms of how much water and light they require to remain happy and healthy. And if you have multiple houseplants in your home, this can be quite difficult to keep track of. But what if a simple sensor and hub could do that for you? "Willow is a really fantastic product to improve your plant's overall happiness," Willow founder James Shamim told House Digest. "The sensor goes into the soil and that directly tracks the temperature, humidity, and the water, giving it an overall happiness score, which you want to make sure stays over 75%."

The information the sensor generates is then sent over to the hub, which collects the data that is delivered to you through their app. That way, you'll know if your plant needs more or less of something to improve its happiness score. And if you have multiple plants you'd like to track, the hub is capable of pairing up with 40 sensors.