Setup & Wiring
If you can’t wire a plug or set up your home broadband, BudMaster probably isn’t for you.
For everyone else — welcome. Two diagrams, a five-step install, no PhD required.
The big picture
The Nexus sits in or next to your tent. It reads from four sensor types and drives your fans, light, heater, humidifier and CO₂ valve. Its two onboard channels run a single tent on their own; plug in a Router Mini, Mid or Max when you need more. The whole thing talks to your phone or laptop over your home Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Nothing leaves your network. Ever.
Back panel & wiring
This is the rear of the Nexus. Its two onboard channels, sensor ports and network sockets all live here. Need more outputs? A Router Mini, Mid or Max plugs straight in and adds 2, 4 or 8 more channels — see the routers page for how they daisy-chain.
Install in five steps
First-time install, assuming you already have a tent, a fan, a light, and a humidifier of your choice. 20–30 minutes.
- Mount the Nexus. Hang it outside the tent (not inside — keep electronics out of the humid air). Use the included bracket and two screws.
- Plug in the sensor pod. The pod comes pre-wired with 2 ft of cable and three tinned-end wires. Push those into the supplied 3-pin connector, plug the connector into the Nexus sensor port, hang the pod mid-canopy. Done. All sensors live on that one cable.
- Wire your fans to the first two channels. Push-fit terminals, no stripping needed. Extract to one, intake to the other. The Nexus auto-balances them for you.
- Connect light, humidifier, heater, CO₂ as required. Dimmable lights wire direct; smart-plug-controlled humidifiers pair over Wi-Fi in the dashboard. Out of channels? Plug in a Router Mini, Mid or Max for more.
- Power up, open
http://budmaster.localin any browser. Dashboard walks you through Wi-Fi setup, stage selection, and VPD targets. No account required.
What's compatible
Everything listed here works out of the box. If your kit isn't listed but speaks one of these protocols, it'll work too.
| Output | How it connects | Examples that work |
|---|---|---|
| Extract / intake fan | Variable-speed fan · 2-wire | AC Infinity EC, Vivosun AeroWave, Hyperfan Stealth |
| LED lamp | Dimmable driver · 2-wire | Mars Hydro FC-E, HLG Diablo, Spider Farmer SE, most grow-light power supplies of the last 5 years |
| Humidifier / dehum | BMG Smart Plug (recommended) · OR Shelly/Sonoff with open firmware | TrolMaster HCS-1, Quest 60/70, or any plug-in humidifier via a BMG plug |
| Heater | Switched output | Any thermostat-less heater (the Nexus does the thermostat work) |
| CO₂ valve | 12 V switched output | Standard 12 V dosing valve + regulator on a CO₂ tank |
| Soil sensor | Wired sensor cable | 7-in-1 industrial soil sensors from any reputable vendor (Catnip, generic Chinese, Meter Group) |
What doesn't work: AC Infinity's proprietary controller-to-fan ecosystem bus, and a handful of closed smart-plugs (Tuya without Local API, Amazon-only models). If in doubt, drop us a line before ordering.
What comes in the box
Every Nexus ships with the following:
- — BudMaster Nexus hub
- — Sensor pod (temperature / humidity + light + barometric pressure, with a CO₂ sensor too)
- — Pod is pre-wired with 2 ft of tinned-end cable and a 3-terminal header
- — Matching push-fit connectors for the Nexus side — no stripping, no soldering
- — Wall-mount bracket and screws
- — Printed quick-start card with the dashboard URL
What we don’t supply — and why
Two things you won’t find in the box, and there are honest reasons for both:
12 V DC power supply
Most people have one knocking about at home already — old router supplies, games console adapters, phone charger bricks with a barrel jack. If you don’t, Argos or Amazon have them cheaply, delivered next day.
We could bundle one — but we’d be importing them, stocking them, re-posting them, and you’d be paying for all of that on top of the product. You’d end up paying twice for a thing you probably already own. We’d rather knock the cost off and tell you straight.
Spec: 12 V DC, 2 A minimum (5 A if driving heavy loads), 2.1 mm centre-positive barrel or direct into the screw terminal.
In-tent cabling
Tent sizes run from a 60 × 60 cm closet to a 2 × 2 m commercial rig. Supplying one fixed cable length would be wrong for half of you.
Buy the exact length you need — any decent twin-core or 3-core cable will do. We’ve tested sensor runs up to 30 m on thin stranded cable without signal issues. For fan and light outputs, that’s plenty of headroom — most people won’t go past 2 m inside a tent anyway.
Recommended: thin stranded cable for sensor runs, twin-core for fans and dimmable lights, CAT5e or better for any long soil-sensor runs.
Fans, lights, humidifiers, heaters, CO&sub2;
Bring your own. The Nexus is the brain — the whole point is you run it with whatever kit you already have or want to buy. See the compatibility table above for what works.
Optional: BMG Smart Plugs — coming soon
For humidifiers, heaters, pumps, bubblers, or anything else you want BudMaster to switch on and off, we make our own BMG Smart Plugs. Black, pre-flashed with BudMaster software, no cloud, no account, no vendor platform — runs entirely on your local network just like the Nexus.
What makes them different
- — Pre-flashed with BudMaster software (open-source under the hood)
- — Pairs with BudMaster automatically — no QR-scanning dance
- — No Tuya, no Smart Life, no Alexa account required
- — Integrates with Home Assistant / Node-RED too
- — 13 A UK 3-pin socket, CE marked
Why we bothered
Off-the-shelf “smart” plugs from TP-Link or Tuya all route your switching decisions through somebody else’s server. One bad Tuesday in Shanghai and your heater stops responding. BMG plugs stay on your network. Forever.
Launching alongside the Nexus. Join the waitlist to hear first.
Ready?
Not sure how many channels you need? Take the 60-second quiz. Or see the full feature matrix.