FarmBot is an open-source CNC farming robot, made by FarmBot Inc. of San Luis Obispo, 📝California, that plants, waters, weeds, and monitors a raised garden bed on an automated gantry.
FarmBot works like a large-format CNC machine or 3D printer mounted over a garden bed. A gantry moves along X, Y, and Z axes with closed-loop encoder positioning and automatically swaps magnetic tools, including a seed injector, watering nozzle, soil sensor, and rotary weeding tool. A 📝Raspberry Pi 4 and a custom Farmduino microcontroller run the machine, and an IP67 rainproof camera supports photo capture and weed detection. Owners design and schedule the garden through a free web app at my.farm.bot.
The v1.8 lineup has two kits. Genesis covers a 1.5 × 3 m bed (4.5 m²) and is listed at $5,995. Genesis XL covers 3 × 6 m (18 m²) for $7,995 and is marketed as enough to feed a family of four. Both handle plants up to about 0.5 m tall, ship about 90–95% pre-assembled with a stated 2–3 hour build, and require a raised bed, 110/220 V power, a garden hose, and Wi-Fi supplied by the buyer. Support is limited to two free hours within 12 months and a 30-day parts warranty.
Rory Aronson founded the company in 2016. The project is fully 🏷️#open-source: hardware follows the Open Source Hardware Association definition, software uses OSI-approved permissive licenses, and CAD files, bills of materials, and code are published on 📝GitHub. FarmBot targets home growers, K–12 and university education, and plant research such as phenotyping.