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Auk Mini 2 Indoor Smart Garden Review: Better Where It Counts
When Auk’s original Mini 1 herb garden hit the market in 2024, it touched on something that many tabletop gardens had until that point failed to consider: If you’re going to give up that much counter or table space, you don’t want it to be for something ugly.
Aerogardens and similar models look … fine, but you’re probably not going to see one in the background of an Architectural Digest shoot. The Auk Mini filled that marketplace gap with its pairing of sleek Scandinavian design and utility, transforming the run-of-the-mill herb-growing operation into a conversation piece.
When I reviewed the original Auk Mini last fall, I loved that it allowed users to plant their own seeds in widely available coco coir, an alternative to peat moss made from coconut husks. No proprietary pods, no subscriptions, no fussy app.
When I started testing the brand-new Auk 2 earlier this summer, I wondered what new features could possibly justify a new model. Turns out, there was more room for improvement than I thought.
For the uninitiated, Auk (pronounced “owk”) is a Norwegian company that released its first garden, the Auk 1, in 2021. Essentially a larger version of the Mini 1, the Auk 1 received mixed reviews online for its tower water reservoir and inconsistent light and watering cycles. (In fact, a former WIRED director tested it and became so frustrated that he threw it in the trash.)
The Mini 1 was a simplified version of the Auk system, with four oval pots set over a 3-liter reservoir. Users could grow the included herb seeds or anything else they wanted in the pots using coco coir. It was simple, stylish, and effective.
The Auk Mini 2 features a handful of updates, but perhaps the most visible is that it comes in new color variations, rather than just black and white. There are still the oak and walnut wood bottoms, but Mini 2 offers beech and ash instead of the Mini 1's cork. Espresso, sage, and terra-cotta colored tops now join the menu of offerings.
The Mini 2 also sports bigger plant pots and a 25 percent larger water capacity, despite its overall footprint being 12 percent smaller than the original.
There is now also—and I admittedly had mixed feelings about this—an app. Using the Auk Connect app isn’t mandatory; you can still control the light schedule manually using a button on the light bar, as with the Auk Mini 1. The app doesn’t add much, but to its credit, it’s easy to set up. You don’t even need to make an account. Just download it; open it; and choose your garden, which the app should already recognize. You’ll access a page where you can turn the light on or off, dim it, set a time schedule, or swap grow mode from “Herbs & Salads” to “Fruits & Veggies.”
Though the stock dowels for the light bar on the Mini 2 are, as on the Mini 1, too low at a maximum of 15 inches to easily accommodate taller fruiting plants like peppers, Auk now offers a $39 Chili & Tomato Kit with longer dowels and a tray with larger pots (two instead of three). I have not tried it, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t result in substantially increased success rates.