In order to accommodate the rapid development of hose reel irrigators in China, enhance the overall awareness of key techniques for the hose reel irrigator and find the gap with the rest of the world, the development history in the world and the main types of hose reel irrigators were reviewed. Key influential factors and research status of the hose reel irrigator were described. The matching relationship among the uniformity of the traveling speed of the sprinkler cart, the traveling speed of the sprinkler cart, the rotating fan angle of the spray nozzle, and the rotating speed of the spray nozzle were concluded. And it was summarized that the running stability of the sprinkler cart, the stability of the nozzle inlet pressure, the attitude and topography of the nozzle were critical factors affecting the irrigation uniformity. Energy conversion efficiency and optimized matching of each component were the key factors affecting the energy consumption of the whole machine. From the scientific and technical point of view, the research progress and existing problems of key technologies such as drive power, transmission system, speed control, energy conversion of the key link and the sprayer cart stability were analyzed, the application basis and key techniques for the development of the hose reel irrigator in China were presented. The development trend of multifunctional and intelligentized hose reel irrigator was expected, and the idea of intelligent irrigation of hose reel irrigator based on Internet of things was proposed.