The 7th annual AgTech Breakthrough Awards program recognizes innovation and excellence in agricultural and food technology companies, products, and services worldwide. Monnit won the award because its ALTA Wireless Soil Moisture Sensor measures soil water tension. This technically advanced and valuable indicator helps you optimize precision irrigation scheduling and conserve water in smart agriculture operations.
“Winning the AgTech Breakthrough Water Monitoring Solution of the Year Award for the third consecutive year is a tremendous honor and reflects our commitment to solving real-world challenges in agriculture,” said Monnit Founder and CEO Brad Walters. “The ALTA Soil Moisture Sensor gives growers meaningful insight into soil water tension and turns field data into actionable operational intelligence, helping them make smarter irrigation decisions, conserve water, and protect crops.”
Monnit Wireless Water Monitoring Solution
As agriculture faces increasing pressure to conserve water while maximizing crop productivity, growers need better tools to understand exactly when, where, and how much to irrigate. The Monnit Wireless Water Monitoring Solution helps quench uncertainty around irrigation decisions by transforming complex soil conditions into actionable insights that support healthier crops, more efficient water use, and improved sustainability.
At the center of the solution is the Monnit ALTA Wireless Soil Moisture Sensor, which continuously measures soil water tension and temperature in the field and sends that data to the iMonnit Monitoring Platform through the ALTA XL IoT Cellular Gateway. Farmers, agronomists, and agricultural managers can remotely view conditions on a smartphone, tablet, or PC and receive immediate alerts via push notification, text, email, or voice call when measurements exceed user-defined thresholds.
The ALTA Soil Moisture Sensor measures soil water tension from 0 to 240 centibars (cb) or kilopascals (kPa), and temperature from -40°C to 125°C (-40°F to 257°F). The sensor combines an innovative resistive granular-matrix sensing element with a thermistor-based temperature element to provide a more complete picture of field conditions and plant stress.
Measure What Plants Actually Experience
Unlike sensors that focus exclusively on volumetric water content, the Monnit ALTA Soil Moisture Sensor measures matric water potential, also known as soil water tension. It's one of the most meaningful indicators of water availability to plants.
The moisture-sensing element functions much like a plant root. Rather than measuring moisture content directly in the surrounding soil, it measures the water tension within its hydrophilic, fabric-covered matrix. As an electrical resistance sensor, it evaluates the energy state of water in the soil profile, revealing how strongly water is being held and how much effort plants must exert to extract it.
This distinction matters because volumetric measurements alone cannot explain how water moves through the soil or how available that water truly is to crops. By monitoring soil water tension, growers gain deeper insight into crop conditions and can make more informed irrigation decisions.
Combine Water Potential and Temperature for Better Outcomes
Adding temperature monitoring further enhances the system's value. When growers analyze soil water potential and temperature data together, they can more accurately assess whether crops are thriving or experiencing stress.
The integrated temperature element provides:
Soil temperature measurements from -40°C to 125°C (-40°F to 257°F)
Data that supports soil moisture temperature compensation
Improved interpretation of changing field conditions
Greater confidence in irrigation timing and management decisions
Together, these measurements help producers optimize irrigation schedules, improve crop yields, reduce plant stress, and mitigate nutrient leaching associated with excessive watering.
Built on a Proven IoT Platform
The Monnit Wireless Water Monitoring Solution operates on Monnit's established Internet of Things (IoT) communications platform, which securely collects, transmits, and manages sensor data across agricultural environments.
The ALTA Soil Moisture Sensor incorporates a long-range, multi-frequency wireless radio paired with a flexible microcontroller, enabling rapid deployment across fields, orchards, vineyards, greenhouses, nurseries, and other precision agriculture applications.
Key sensor and platform capabilities include:
Corrosion-resistant stainless-steel construction for durability in demanding field environments
Internal salinity compensation to improve performance across varying soil conditions
Reliable operation in hot and freezing temperatures
Easier installation and maintenance compared to traditional tensiometers
Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) communications for enhanced resistance to wireless interference
Immunity to disruption caused by physical obstructions, competing radio frequencies, and electromagnetic interference (EMI)
Wireless communication ranges of up to 2,000+ feet through obstacles and up to one mile line-of-sight at ground level
Encrypt-RF® Security, featuring Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange and AES-128 Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) encryption for sensor data messages
Local storage capacity for up to 4,000 sensor readings if gateway connectivity is temporarily interrupted
Sensor data is transmitted through the ALTA XL IoT Gateway to the iMonnit platform, where you can visualize trends, establish thresholds, configure notifications, and monitor conditions remotely from virtually anywhere.
Quench Water-Saving Concerns Through Precision Agriculture
Agricultural producers today must balance two competing priorities: conserving increasingly limited water resources while maintaining healthy, productive crops. Both overwatering and underwatering can negatively impact yields, increase costs, and contribute to environmental challenges.
The Monnit Wireless Water Monitoring Solution helps quench water-saving worries by providing the data necessary to support precision irrigation practices. By understanding the relationship between soil water tension, temperature, and plant demand, growers can apply water more strategically, delivering the right amount at the right time.
Connecting soil conditions to the IoT empowers agricultural operations to move beyond assumptions and toward evidence-based decision-making. The result is more efficient resource use, healthier crops, reduced waste, and stronger economic and environmental sustainability.
Through its unique approach to measuring soil water potential, robust wireless architecture, and practical field-ready design, the Monnit Wireless Water Monitoring Solution delivers meaningful innovation that addresses one of agriculture's most critical challenges: producing more while using less.
About Monnit Corporation
The origin story of the Internet of Things (IoT) begins with Monnit. Before our inception in 2010, we were already at the forefront of embedding technology into machines and devices to enable them to talk and deliver valuable data to business leaders. Monnit Remote Monitoring Solutions for nearly any industry use case have delivered 72B+ data points in 130+ countries for 90K+ customers. Monnit's 80+ long-range IoT sensors remotely monitor many conditions such as temperature, light, humidity, water, vibration, pressure, and more. You can analyze data using iMonnit cloud software and get alerts via email, text, push notification, or call when our sensors detect a change you should know.
About AgTech Breakthrough
Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the AgTech Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in agricultural & food technologies, services, companies, and products around the world. The AgTech Breakthrough Awards program provides a forum for public recognition around the achievements of AgTech companies and solutions in categories including farm management, indoor farming, IoT and robotics, FoodTech, analytics, and more. For more information, visit AgTechBreakthrough.com.
Tech Breakthrough LLC does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in our recognition programs, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with award designations. Tech Breakthrough LLC recognition consists of the opinions of the Tech Breakthrough LLC organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Tech Breakthrough LLC disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this recognition program, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
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