databaum
databaum is a German-Swiss data intelligence platform for regenerative agriculture. Its Smart Agriculture Dashboard turns field sensors, weather stations and climate data into downy and powdery mildew forecasts, irrigation decisions and custom alerts for vineyards and orchards.
What is databaum?
databaum is a data intelligence platform for regenerative agriculture, published by databaum GmbH in Hamburg with a Swiss subsidiary, databaum Sàrl, at the EPFL Innovation Park in Lausanne. Its core product is the Smart Agriculture Dashboard, built around four blocks: Alerts and Warnings, a Disease Map combining real-time geolocated tracking with predictive analytics, Sensor and Field Management, and Field-Specific Data.
The approach is to hold everything known about a plot in one place, crop type, size and live sensor readings, keep a complete history of events, and then read the trends across several seasons. On top of that sit the disease models: downy mildew and powdery mildew on vines, fed by detailed weather data and returning risk assessments with treatment recommendations, while treatments and weather are logged automatically. The publisher calls its downy mildew model among the most precise in viticulture and points at outside checks rather than its own, naming Agroscope, the Weinbauzentrum Wädenswil, EPFL and the VitiProtect research project on AI-based mildew prediction.
Hardware is rented, not sold. databaum weather stations ship with a 4-in-1 soil, air, rain and leaf pack; the catalogue also carries the SenseCAP S2105 soil sensor and the Delta-T WET150 research probe measuring water content, temperature and pore-water conductivity over SDI-12 with M12 connectors. Growers whose plots sit within 1 km of an existing databaum or Agrometeo station can skip equipment altogether, and anyone already running a Sencrop, Weenat or Leova Smart station can connect it, with Sencrop and Weenat even letting you subscribe from their own decision-support platform.
Signup offers grape, apple, pear, cherry and other, though vineyards are by far the most documented case. Claimed benefits are water savings through smarter irrigation, fewer chemical inputs and steadier yields, backed by counters the site does not source: 500+ farmers, 98% satisfaction and 45% average savings on the homepage, 30-45% less spray, 100+ Swiss vineyard owners and 9+ cantons on the pricing page. Access runs through a web console plus Android and iOS apps, in English, German, French and Italian, with the company aligning itself on UN Sustainable Development Goals 2, 6, 12, 13 and 15.
What it does
- Predict downy and powdery mildew before they spread, from real-time and historical data
- Monitor field weather: forecasts, historical records and a geolocated disease map
- Collect microclimate readings from soil, air, rain and leaf sensors
- Plan and log pesticide and fertiliser applications, with treatment recommendations
- Trigger irrigation only when the crop actually needs it
- Receive custom alerts for frost, heat and water stress before the harvest is hit
- Compare multi-year trends on charts and replay the full timeline of critical events
When to use databaum / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if databaum is the right fit.
When to use databaum
- Swiss vineyard owners: the pricing page claims 100+ of them already on the platform, and the downy and powdery mildew models are the most documented part of the product.
- Fruit growers working apple, pear or cherry, the other crops offered on the signup form alongside grape.
- Estates of 5 hectares and up, the first billing tier, who want field-level weather, alerts and treatment logs without buying equipment outright.
- Cantons, cooperatives and large estates, whose needs are scoped before quotation under the Enterprise plan, with custom models, integrations and data delivery.
- Teaching staff and public research teams, who are granted full platform access free of charge on request.
- Growers who already run a Sencrop, Weenat or Leova Smart station and want it connected rather than replaced.
When not to use databaum
- Growers outside Switzerland who need local billing: every price is quoted in Swiss francs with 8.1% Swiss VAT, and the terms name Basel as the exclusive place of jurisdiction under Swiss law alone.
- Anyone expecting instant self-service access: signups are reviewed by the team before an account is created, and the trial is set up by hand.
- General-public users looking for a permanently free tier: the Free plan is reserved for teaching and public research, on request.
- Buyers who want to own their equipment: stations and sensors are rented, not sold, and stay databaum's property.
- Farms wanting monthly flexibility: every plan is billed annually and the subscription is not refunded once the invoice has been issued.
- Anyone under 18, the minimum age set by the privacy policy.
How to use databaum
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Size the need first on the pricing page: the configurator takes crop, area, plan, hardware and add-ons and returns an annual total including 8.1% VAT.
- Fill in the short signup form: name, email, mobile, crop type, area in hectares and location.
- Wait for the team to review the request, since accounts are created after a manual check rather than instantly.
- Go through the station map together before buying anything: a databaum or Agrometeo station within 1 km of your plots may already be enough.
- Flag any Sencrop, Weenat or Leova Smart station you already own so it can be connected instead of duplicated.
- Run the 7-day trial, built on your real plots around the need you described, with no payment taken.
- Discuss requirements with the team, then receive the invoice once the scope is settled.
- Let databaum deliver, install and maintain the hardware; replacement is part of the subscription.
- Work day to day in the web console at databaum.ch/console and in the mobile app.
- Follow the blog guides when needed, such as How to Set Up Your databaum Weather Station and Create your databaum account in minutes, published in English, German, French and Italian.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Pricing is public and granular, down to a configurator that shows the annual total with 8.1% Swiss VAT before any conversation.
- The paid entry point is unusually low: CHF 30 a year covers the first 5 hectares on the Starter plan.
- Hardware is rented, installed, maintained and replaced by the publisher, so there is no capital outlay and nothing to service yourself.
- You may need no station at all if a databaum or Agrometeo station runs within 1 km, and stations you already own from Sencrop, Weenat or Leova Smart can be connected.
- External field validation is claimed from Agroscope, the Weinbauzentrum Wädenswil, EPFL and 9+ Swiss cantons, with a 30-45% reduction in spraying reported by the publisher.
- Full platform access is free for teaching and public research on request, and prospects get a 7-day trial built on their own plots.
- Servers are announced in Germany and Switzerland, a DPO is named with both an email and a postal address, and site, blog and interface run in four languages.
Cons
- Everything is priced in Swiss francs with Swiss VAT, and the terms name Basel as the exclusive place of jurisdiction under Swiss law alone.
- A Weather API is sold as an add-on, yet no public API documentation page exists or is linked anywhere on the site.
- The App Store and Google Play badges in the footer point at a dead anchor, so no store URL is published for either mobile app.
- Account creation is not immediate, every signup being reviewed by the team, and the subscription is not refunded once the invoice has been issued.
- The privacy policy names no subprocessor, only categories of third parties, and no data processing agreement is published or offered.
- That policy dates from March 2023 and still carries an unfilled template variable in its retention clause, while no security certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 is published.
- Marketing figures come without sources (500+ farmers, 98% satisfaction, 45% average savings), only one named testimonial appears, two announced features are undelivered, and a single email address serves the entire site.
Pricing & Plans
A free plan exists but is not open to the general public: full platform access is granted at no charge to teaching and public research projects, on request. All paid plans are billed annually in Swiss francs, the first tier covering 5 hectares with a supplement per additional hectare. The lowest paid entry point is the Starter plan at CHF 30 per year for the first 5 hectares, plus CHF 6 per extra hectare. Above it, Basic is CHF 100 per year (CHF 20 per extra hectare), Pro CHF 300 (CHF 60), Master CHF 600 (CHF 120), and Enterprise starts at CHF 5,000 on quotation. Hardware is a separate annual subscription: CHF 250 for a weather station with the 4-in-1 pack, CHF 150 for the SenseCAP S2105 soil sensor and CHF 400 for the Delta-T WET150, with 10% off from the second item and flat shipping of CHF 19 charged once per invoice. Add-ons cover 20 years of weather history (CHF 20, one-time, one location), an estate website (CHF 100 a year, Basic and Pro) and a Weather API (CHF 100 a year). The publisher's own example puts a 5-hectare vineyard on Pro with one station at CHF 569 excluding tax, CHF 615 including 8.1% VAT, roughly CHF 46 a month. A 7-day trial precedes any payment, and invoices are net 30 days.
- full platform access for academic projects
- granted to academics and public research on application.
- databaum community membership
- 1 connected weather station
- Financial tracker
- notifications and alerts
- Canton dashboard and Weather forecast dashboard.
- everything in Starter plus 3 connected stations
- irrigation management
- stock management and satellite imagery.
- everything in Basic plus 5 connected stations
- disease management and treatment advisory.
- everything in Pro plus an estate website built and maintained by databaum
- an AI assistant on your own field data (coming soon) and personal support.
- requirements scoping before the quote
- custom models
- integrations and data delivery.
- Hardware subscription
- priced separately and invoiced annually alongside the plan
- covering weather stations and sensors.
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how databaum handles your data.
GDPR overview
Implementation is concrete rather than declarative: the site never claims compliance in so many words, but the privacy policy, last updated on 21 March 2023, expressly invokes the GDPR and the UK GDPR to set out its legal bases. A data protection officer is named, Saurabh Pandey, reachable at saurabh@databaum.ch or at databaum GmbH, Parkallee 81, 20144 Hamburg. Rights are spelled out: access and a copy, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection and withdrawal of consent, with complaints routed to the EU supervisory authorities or the Swiss EDÖB. Transfers rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, provided on request. No Article 27 representative is designated, the publisher itself being established in the EU. Two gaps remain: no data processing agreement is published or offered, and Do-Not-Track signals are not honoured.
Who owns the data?
databaum draws a line between two kinds of data. Farm data stays with the grower: fields, treatments, stock and yields belong to the customer and, the pricing page says, are passed to nobody without consent. Only weather measurements and forecasts are shared, and the publisher grounds that on hardware ownership: you subscribe to a working station, databaum owns, maintains and replaces it, and that ownership is what lets the readings feed the shared network. Personal data is a separate matter: databaum GmbH collects names, phone numbers, emails, postal and billing addresses, usernames, passwords and contact preferences, while the mobile app adds geolocation, camera, microphone and storage access, device identifiers and push notifications. A profile page lets users view, edit or delete it all.
Reuse rights
The privacy policy lists its purposes rather than granting reuse rights: creating and authenticating accounts, delivering the service, answering requests, sending administrative information, handling orders, payments and returns, requesting feedback, protecting the service and preventing fraud, identifying usage trends and protecting a vital interest. The legal bases invoked are consent, performance of the contract, legitimate interests, legal obligations and vital interests. databaum states it processes no sensitive personal information and receives no information from third parties. Sharing is described by category only, never by name: Cloud Computing Services, Communication & Collaboration Tools, Finance & Accounting Tools, Payment Processors and Website Hosting Service Providers. The cookie policy is more specific, naming Google Analytics for analytics and Stripe for payment, behind a granular consent banner that promises nothing is loaded until you turn it on. Nowhere does the site address the training of AI models on customer data; it only says that a denser station network improves local weather models for everyone around you.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The privacy policy is direct on the point: databaum's servers are located in Germany and Switzerland. No broad region is ever named, neither EU, nor EEA, nor APAC, only those two countries. Beyond that primary hosting, the policy accepts that data may travel to Switzerland, the United States and other countries through the third parties databaum works with, and states that the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses are implemented for such transfers, with copies supplied on request. An independent network check supports the German leg: the A record for databaum.ch resolves to 91.99.232.171, an AS24940 Hetzner Online GmbH address in Nuremberg, Germany, on non-anycast infrastructure. Both declared jurisdictions carry a legal entity, the publisher being established in Hamburg and its subsidiary in Lausanne. What is missing is assurance rather than location: no hosting or security certification is published, neither SOC 2 nor ISO 27001, and no hosting provider is named anywhere, only categories such as Cloud Computing Services and Website Hosting Service Providers.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting databaum.
- The retention clause of the privacy policy is broken: it promises to keep personal information no longer than months past the termination of the account, with the number of months never filled into the template. No maximum duration is therefore enforceable.
- That policy has not been touched since 21 March 2023, while the cookie policy carries an effective date of 26 August 2026. The legal documentation ages at two very different speeds.
- No subprocessor is named, only categories of third parties, and no data processing agreement is published or offered, so you cannot audit who handles your data on databaum's behalf.
- The App Store and Google Play badges point at a dead anchor: the mobile apps cannot be checked, neither their publisher, nor their version, nor their last update.
- The commitment is annual and not refundable once invoiced. The terms cap the warranty at one year after delivery, cap liability at the value of the order and exclude indirect damage.
- The legal notice hands the decision back to you: the implementation of the results of the disease and pest prognoses in a control strategy is the sole responsibility of the user. A model that is right most of the time can quietly erode the habit of walking the rows, and it is the grower, not the forecast, who carries a lost harvest.
- The paperwork contradicts itself in places: terms signed Basel, March 2023 while the Swiss seat has since moved to Ecublens near Lausanne, and an application copyright reading 2019-2025 against a 2026 footer. Marketing figures such as 500+ farmers, 98% satisfaction and 45% average savings carry no source at all.
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Low. Signing up means a short form covering name, email, mobile, crop, area and location, then a manual review by the team. Nothing is installed by the customer: databaum delivers, installs, maintains and replaces the hardware, and if a databaum or Agrometeo station already runs within 1 km of your plots you can start with no equipment at all. The 7-day trial is set up on your real fields, and connecting an existing Sencrop, Weenat or Leova Smart station goes through a conversation rather than a self-service flow. No technical skill is required unless you buy the Weather API add-on.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind databaum
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Which crops does databaum cover?
Which diseases does the platform model?
Do I have to buy hardware to get started?
Do I own the weather station I subscribe to?
Can I connect a weather station I already own?
Is there a free trial or a free plan?
What does it cost to get started?
Is there a mobile app?
Where is my data hosted, and is my farm data shared?
Is there an API, and which languages are supported?
Should you pick databaum?
databaum is a niche tool and makes no secret of it. Everything points at Swiss viticulture: the currency, the 8.1% VAT, the Canton dashboard, the field validation claimed from Agroscope, the Weinbauzentrum Wädenswil and EPFL, the 100+ vineyard owners the pricing page counts. Growers outside that orbit will find the product usable but the commercial frame foreign, since prices exist only in Swiss francs and the terms place jurisdiction in Basel under Swiss law alone.
The business model is the interesting part. Hardware is rented rather than sold, installed and replaced by the publisher, and can sometimes be skipped entirely when a neighbouring station already covers your plots. Paired with a CHF 30 entry price for 5 hectares, that removes most of the capital risk usually attached to precision agriculture. The price is annual commitment: once the invoice is issued there is no refund, and the season runs its course.
What deserves a closer look is the paperwork rather than the product. The privacy policy dates from March 2023 and still carries an unfilled template variable where the retention period should be, so no maximum duration is actually stated. No subprocessor is named, no data processing agreement is offered, no security certification is published, and the mobile apps advertised in the footer have no reachable store listing. The marketing counters (500+ farmers, 98% satisfaction, 45% savings) come without sources, and two headline features are still announced rather than delivered.
For a Swiss vine or fruit grower of 5 hectares or more, particularly one already living with mildew pressure, the trial costs nothing and the entry price is low enough to test the claims on real plots. For anyone needing contractual guarantees, an audited supply chain or documentation of an API they are being sold, the file is thin.
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