For farmers, it’s highly important to regularly monitor water tank levels around their sometimes massive properties.
This can make or break the operation of a farm, and ensure that livestock always have access to the water that they need.
But currently this often requires manual inspection of water tanks, something that can involve significant travel time and costs, made even harder during hot summer months.
Alternate solutions only provide updates every five to nine hours, but these delays can impact response times and increase risks.
Enter Farmbot Monitoring Solutions, an innovative NSW-based startup providing farmers with a smarter way to manage water on their properties.
The Farmbot SaaS platform involves unique Internet of Things devices which gather data points on water assets with near real-time reporting on water levels, trends and alerts, anywhere in the world.
The system has been purpose-built for harsh Australian outback conditions, and is currently installed on 10 percent of Australian cattle stations.
Farmbot Water Level Monitor provides near real-time insights into water tank levels, while Farmbot Trough Direct is an advanced monitoring device placed directly in water troughs, enabling accurate, high-frequency data on water levels and flow.
The company estimates that the use of the technology can lead to a 40 percent average reduction in the costs associated with water runs.
An independent trial of Farmbot’s service run by SA Arid Lands Landscape Board in 2023 found that the livestock operation saw a more than 65 percent reduction in travel distance incurred, equating to about 93,000 kilometres annually, and a reduction of over 23,000 kilograms in CO2 emissions.
Farmbot Monitoring Solutions is a finalist in the InnovationAus 2025 Awards for Excellence in the AI Technology and Defence and Dual-Use Technology categories. The InnovationAus 2025 Awards for Excellence winners and finalists will be celebrated at a black-tie gala dinner at Sydney Town Hall on Thursday, November 27. You can book your tickets here.
The AI Technology award is proudly sponsored by the National Artificial Intelligence Centre.
The category spotlights novel tools, technology or methodologies helping Australia build sovereign capability in AI, ones that aren’t just doing AI for AI’s sake, but to impact, inspire and make people’s lives better.
The technology underpinning Farmbot was co-founded and developed by Craig Hendricks, who has 14 years of farming experience and 40 years in the IT industry, including across banking, telcos, retail and government.
The 2025 InnovationAus Awards for Excellence will be held on November 27 at the magnificent Sydney Town Hall. You can secure individual seats or book a table here. Purchase a table of 10 and have your logo displayed on screens across the venue and in the event programme as a ‘Table Sponsor’.
The InnovationAus 2025 Awards for Excellence are proudly supported by ACS, PEXA Group, the CSIRO ON Program, Griffith Hack, TechnologyOne, Q-CTRL, National AI Centre, University of New South Wales, KPMG, AgriFutures Australia, Investment NSW and IP Australia.
Protecting your great ideas with intellectual property (IP) rights can lead to lasting benefits for your growing business. IP refers to creations of the mind, such as a brand, logo, invention, design or artistic work. Head to the IP Australia website to find out more about IP, and how it might help your business.
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.