If you are installing GeoDrops in sandy soil, potting soil, or compost (i.e., soil that has always been loose to begin with), then please follow the additional steps in this YouTube video:  How to install GeoDrops in  potting, compost, or sandy soil

Carefully use your fingers to squeeze and compact the soil between the sensor probes.  This helps accelerate the time it takes for the soil to cure and stay compacted between the probes, allowing the initial soil profile learning phase to complete quickly.

If your soil is very hard due to being fully dried up, we recommend slowly wetting the soil to soften it first.  Alternatively, you can try placing a bucket of ice over the soil and letting it slowly melt, so the water can soak into the soil.  Repeat as needed.

If your soil is very hard due to very dense or thick tree roots, we recommend installing the GeoDrops Droplet elsewhere.  Areas of your soil with very dense thick tree roots are generally not ideal for growing additional plants or lawns, since it will be difficult for the soil to be aerated enough for most plants to grow.

Never install the GeoDrops Droplet device in the same soil location.

If you need to reinstall the GeoDrops Droplet in natural Earth soil, always find a new install location that is at least 1 feet or 30cm away from the previous installation location.  An existing installation location has soil that has cured (hardened) against the sensor probes, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to regain good soil-to-sensor contact.  GeoDrops AI will complain that it cannot learn your soil profile, or it will detect various signs of poor sensor-to-soil contact, making it impossible to learn or monitor your soil moisture.

The only exception to this rule is if you have loose soil to begin with.  So if you have loose potting soil, compost soil, or sandy soil, then reinstalling the GeoDrops Droplet device in the same location is preferred, as long as you follow the squeeze and compact instructions above.

Some people may ask:  I have typical Earth soil (loamy soil), and this ends up leaving all kinds of "holes" in my lawn and it looks ugly.  The solution to this is simple.  Simply take a hand trowel, and slice and gently push the soil in an orthogonal direction to refill the hole.  In general, these small holes are actually good (and preferred) to have in your garden once a year, since they achieve the same effect as core aeration, which is healthy for your soil to breathe.

First, GeoDrops sensor probes only work with soil (or soil-like) materials.  This means that GeoDrops works with all types of natural Earth soil, including loamy soil, sandy soil, clay soil, silt soil, and any combination of the above.  It also works with fine compost and potting soil.  As long as the soil is relatively fine-grained and can come in full contact with the sensor probes, GeoDrops can self-calibrate and work with that soil medium.

However, if you are growing your plants in pure water (hydroponics), rocks (semi-hydroponics), or pure wood chips (such as orchid bark), GeoDrops will NOT work in these environments.
 

Second, the GeoDrops sensor probes must be fully inserted in your soil for the Self-Learning GeoDrops AI physics model to work.  So if you install the GeoDrops Droplet device in an elevated bed, a shallow raised bed, or a large plant pot, please make sure the container has deep enough soil that allows the sensor probes to be fully immersed in the soil.

This is needed because the GeoDrops AI physics model measures soil moisture propagation delays across different soil depth levels, as well as the soil dielectric phase delays, and more, in order to learn and predict your soil profile and weather response over time.

This also means that if you have a thin layer of canopy materials over your base soil (such as having bark mulch over your garden bed), please make sure the GeoDrops sensor probes are fully immersed in the underlying soil itself.  The sensors should not be measuring the bark mulch canopy layer, since that's not where the majority of your plant roots are.

If your lawn or garden area has relatively consistent soil type, just a single GeoDrops Droplet device is often sufficient.  GeoDrops Droplet devices are designed to be easy to move around, so you can experiment with different locations to choose the best one.

For permanent install through a typical growing season (spring to fall), we recommend placing it in an "average" wet area based on your irrigation setup.  Avoid placing the device right next to a sprinkler head or drip line, but also don't put it in an area without any plants.  Neither of these soil moisture readings will be representative of what your average soil plant roots are able to absorb.

For situations where your lawn or garden area is quite large, and there are clear areas that are exposed to significantly more sun than others throughout the day, we would recommend putting one GeoDrops Droplet device in the sunny area, and a separate GeoDrops Droplet device in the shaded area.

In general, we do not recommend removing a thick layer of thatch or any (stubborn) plug of grass during installation, since this often disturbs and loosens up the soil underneath.  Instead, simply find a good spot where you can use your hands to gently brush away the grass, and simply install the device directly over the thatch layer underneath.

The only exception to this rule is if your thatch is extremely thick, meaning much thicker than 1 inch or 2.5 cm. In that case, use your finger to brush away and thin down the thatch layer until it is less than 3/4 inch or 2 cm thick before installing the GeoDrops Droplet device over that thatch area.

GeoDrops is designed to work with lawns, flowers and vegetables, and small shrubs.  In general, there is no need to remove or cut plant roots.  GeoDrops sensor blades are designed to work accurately within a plant's existing root system, and can be inserted in-place as is, gliding or slicing through dense root systems.  And as the plant roots grow, GeoDrops can be easily re-calibrated in-place if excessive root growth ends up disturbing the soil-to-sensor surface contacts.

However, the sensor probes are NOT designed to work with thick tree roots, so please make sure to install the GeoDrops Droplet devices away from large trees that have thick roots near the surface.  Also, make sure the area is free of any rocks larger than a quarter.  Forcefully inserting the sensor probes in these areas will cause permanent damage to the GeoDrops Droplet device, and this is not covered under warranty.

The GeoDrops Droplet is roughly the size of a sprinkler head, so it is very easy to lose it after 6-12 months of being installed in your lawn, since lawns grow denser over time, covering everything at the ground level.

IMPORTANT:  It is highly recommended that you take clear photos from multiple angles after installing your device, capturing your device's location in the lawn relative to surrounding plants and buildings.

If the photos don't help, you can also use the Find My Device feature in the GeoDrops App to locate your device.  This feature turns on the LED at the highest brightness for 10 to 15 minutes, which is sometimes sufficient to allow you to spot your device at dusk or at night.

WARNING: Due to how bright the LED gets, the Find My Device feature can drain your device's battery very quickly.  It also means that this feature does not work if the battery level is very low, or if your device's battery has died.

If worse comes to worst, one possible last resort is to buy a cheap handheld metal detector, available on Amazon for $20 to $30 each.