Watering our lawns and gardens is a thankless chore, and it can be particularly wasteful when done with a hose in one hand and a beer in the other. Irrigation systems have made home watering simpler and more efficient, and while the bulk of any sprinkler system revolves around plastic pipes (hoses and drippers with a drip irrigation system) and a set of motorized valves attached to the water supply, the brains of the operation has always been in the controller. For decades, sprinkler controllers have hardly been elegant devices. They typically consist of a rotary dial, a handful of switches, a…