Transcription
Hi friends, this video is about the comparison between AeroGarden Bounty Basic and AeroGarden Bounty Elite. Let's see which one is better, is it worth the money, and what are the different use cases to pick one over the other.
As always, my videos are based on the real-time results from my own experiments. You can read the text specs as much as I do, so respecting your time and my time, I am not going to describe the tech specs. However, I quickly highlight the similarities and differences in hardware and software.
Starting with hardware, both Gardens have the same dimensions, bowl size, height adjustments, and both Gardens support nine pods.
Coming to the differences in hardware, I see three main differences. The first difference is the light voltage: Bounty Basic has 30-wattage lights, while Bounty Elite has 50-wattage lights. The second difference is the look and feel: The Elite model has a stainless steel finishing on the bowl as well as the top of the light panel. This gives a nice glossy look. Coming to the Bounty Basic, it is all basic plastic material with a basic finishing. The third difference is the control panel: Elite has a colorful touchscreen with touch buttons, while Basic has a grayscale non-touch screen with touch buttons.
Now let's talk about the software. Starting with similarities, both models support the most useful features such as vacation mode, pump test, Garden types, custom light timings, custom pump cycle, and reminders for water and nutrition.
Coming to the differences in software, Elite has built-in Wi-Fi and app support. Once we add the device in the app, we can manage most of the settings in the app itself. Bounty Basic doesn't have Wi-Fi support. Elite has sunrise and sunset lighting to automatically adjust the brightness according to the sunlight. Bounty Basic has fixed brightness.
All right, that is all about the tech specs. The real question is what is the real deal with one over the other. Let's go through my cucumber experiment. I started both Gardens at the same time with the same variety of seeds and feeding both plants the exact same amount of nutrition and also refilling the water at the same time. However, the end result is different.
To understand it better, I will quickly go through the entire growth cycle. I have 20-days-old tiny cucumber plants that I started from seeds in AeroGarden and harvested. All seeds germinated on the same day, and all these seedlings are growing exactly the same. Now I will transplant two plants, one into Bounty Basic and one into Bounty Elite.
It's day 30. Here is the plant in Bounty Basic; it started producing flower buds and developing some side branches. Here is the plant in Elite; it looks exactly the same with the flower buds and side branches.
Day 37: One flower at full bloom today in Bounty Basic, whereas in Bounty Elite, I see two flowers at full bloom today.
Day 45: Lots of flower buds on both plants. Starting with Bounty Basic, I see the flowers started drying up, but I don't see any growth on the baby cucumbers. Coming to the Elite, I see at least four baby cucumbers are showing nice progress, and one of them is pretty much at the edible stage.
Day 55: Starting with the basic model, the plant has lots of flowers and baby cucumbers, but none of them are showing further progress. Coming to the Elite, it has four cucumbers growing very nicely; three of them are almost matured. I can harvest them if I want to.
Day 71: Starting with Basic, I am finally seeing four cucumbers growing nicely; three of them almost matured. They might grow a little more, but I can harvest them now if I want to. Coming to the Elite, I already harvested two cucumbers from this plant, and I am harvesting the third cucumber today. It still has three more cucumbers close to their maturity.
Day 81: Starting with Bounty Basic, the first cucumber is ready, and I will harvest it now. Coming to Elite, I already harvested five cucumbers so far, and four more cucumbers are getting ready.
There we go. Overall, I was able to harvest nine cucumbers from Bounty Elite in 90 days, whereas from Bounty Basic, I got only four cucumbers, and Bounty Basic took longer to produce those four cucumbers. So the plant in Bounty Basic performed pretty poorly compared to the plant in Elite. I know every plant is different, but the difference here is significant. Cucumber plants need a lot of light, and the 50-wattage lights in Bounty Elite clearly made the difference.
So if you want to grow plants like cucumbers, then the Elite is preferred and it is worth the money. However, something like lettuce actually prefers low light and low temperature, so I would never grow lettuce in Bounty Elite. The light from Elite is too much for plants like lettuce, so I prefer AeroGarden Harvest or something similar for lettuce.
I am not sure if there will be any differences for the plants like tomatoes. I have grown many varieties of tomatoes in Bounty Basic and I got pretty good results. I need to experiment side by side to see the real differences. Anyways, I am going to keep on experimenting to compare the Gardens and the plant varieties. I will keep you updated with all the results from my experiments, so please stay tuned.
That is all for now. Thanks for watching and happy AeroGardening.