> The con for me is that it’s harder to check the water levels for me.
That was my only con for opaque cache pots too, but I solved it with these when I prepare a pot I fill it 1/3 with leca, water level indicator and water, and then mark the proper "full" level on the indicator (since it's different depending on the pot you can't rely on the marks the indicator comes with). This way I can glance at my opaque pots and immediately know if it's due for water.
Sure thing! Only the tiniest net pots would fit in this silly thing (like, a 2.5 inch might fit) so the plant, leca and gauge are potted directly in the container. I bought the gauge from Amazon. It's positioned such that the little red thing hits the top at the exact place where the reservoir should come up to, so it's easy to refill the right amount.
In the beginning i was putting my hand over the leca and tipping the pot to empty/flush and it was somewhat annoying (I prefer net+cache pot), but the roots have grown and gripped the leca enough that I can actually pull the whole plant and root system out in one big clump, so it's much easier to flush and clean now.
So there was a learning curve in figuring out how to make it work but overall it's easy now.
It's a self watering pot with a little window so you can see if there's water left, but I also use indicators like these in all my pots
I use these in my semihydro pots to monitor water level without needing a clear pot.