You may have seen these things advertised on TV. They're basically
blown glass, forming a ball with a long neck, and they're intended to
be filled with water and then put in the pot, with the neck pushed
into the medium.

I can't see them working with coarser media, but they seem to work
with my new Cymbidiums.

I received a couple for Christmas, and have used them exclusively to
water my Cymbidiums.

Here are a couple observations that may prove useful.

1) the ease with which they penetrate the medium seems to reflect how
recently the plants were repotted. The pink seems to have been
repotted quite recently, while the yellow has probably not been
repotted in a couple years. Something that is probably correlated
with this is that the pink has half as many pseudobulbs, and seems to
take up only half of the surface of the pot while the yellow looks
like it is crowded, with only a little of the surface of the medium
even visible.

2) probably due to the state of the medium in the respective pots, the
pink seems to need more water (I need to refill the globe about 3
times as often) than the yellow. I would hazard a guess that it I
gave the yellow as much water as the pink, I'd end up drowning its
roots; I expect its medium is retaining more water and has less pore
space, than the medium supporting the pink.

3) despite the apparent differences in the condition of their media,
both seem to be very happy.

As my experience with Cymbidiums and with aquaglobes is very short,
I'll know better in a few months if these observations hold true.

Any thoughts, or anyone else with more experience with these things?

Cheers

Ted