Rachio

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Horrendous terms of use that must be agreed to. Convenient but unsettling how the app somehow got my WiFi password from my iphone and passed it to the Rachio hardware automatically. I wish the app showed when my Rain sensor was wet. I wish I could change the type of a schedule without deleting it and creating a new one. I wish the app didn't hang when I was creating a new schedule, but it works most of the time. App schedule display also had several inconsistencies (e.g., saying it WILL and WON'T water tomorrow on the same home screen, and Zones screen mismatch with home screen regarding next watering date). Flex Daily schedule said it's going to water but then it skipped watering for no apparent reason when lawn was dry. To prevent the grass dying I ran a manual schedule but the Flex Daily schedule now says it's going to water regardless that the grass is now saturated. Home screen optionally shows monthly water usage which is useful. The Rachio unit itself only works if their cloud service is up, so it may become a brick if Rachio's server or internet is down (can only run 3 minute manual cycles on the unit itself). Customer service did get back to me (submitted requests through app).

My experience with the app and Rachio 3 has been pretty much flawless. A few glitches but nothing a restart of the app didn’t resolve. I think some issues people are having is internet connectivity. If you have mediocre WiFi in your home it’s probably pretty bad in your garage if the Rachio is located there. I have a access point in my garage and the Rachio shows strong connectivity in the client list. Maybe that’s why it always works. I would totally give it 5 stars if it had a RJ45 jack on the back to possibly run it PoE (power over ethernet) over a CAT 6. This would give it rock solid connectivity and may resolve a lot of people’s issues. Sometimes when I pull my truck in the garage a certain way it will reduce the signal to 60% (metal barrier). With a hard wired connection none of these changes in everyday life would effect the connectivity and cause people to post un researched problems and immediately blame the device. Oh, and on a previous post on how the Rachio got his WiFi password. This is a HomeKit device, that’s why you bought it right? You said you had a iPhone so you are prob a iOS and AppleTV guy. HomeKit passed on the credentials and set up protocols. You can disable this.

This is the third auto sprinkler clock I have tried in the past 10 years because of incredibly disappointing results and other reasons. Compared to the other two which are not relevant because of technological advances and budget this Rachio is a dream come true! Even though their information on how much water my lawn should receive is based on their opinion of a proper watering schedule based on the weather is very much different than that of the water conservatory group which I belong to. I have watered according to local landscaping recommended schedule and my grass is the best it’s ever been in the 17 years that I’ve owned this home. The app is easy and I always know what’s going on and I can stop cycles at anytime I want, I can run manual schedules I can completely control the experience I have a super powerful Wi-Fi so it always stays connected and has not failed in three months so far. The reason I chose this brand was because if it’s in Costco, then it has usually passed a lot of consumer-protecting research and tests. I will totally back the opinion of Costco that you get your $$ worth on this system. Love my lawn!

Their “flex daily” schedule is their smartest and most dynamic scheduling option, but it was one glaring flaw. If you tell it to be done by sunrise (the default/recommended choice), when it determines what time to START watering, so that it will be done by sunrise, it completely neglects to check the schedule it intelligently creates, and instead assumes all zones will be watering for their maximum normal duration. For somebody like me with 10 zones, that means even though it’s only planning on watering for 4 hours, it decides it needs to start watering at 8pm. Irrigation 101 dictates you should not start watering early in the evening, because by letting the soil and plant surface sit damp and dark all night unnecessarily, you’re going to promote disease. This is clearly a bug in rachio’s algorithm... hopefully one they fix soon, as I already struggle with preventing brown spot in my zoysia and that was before I replaced my old school controller with this “smart” one. Otherwise, even though I just set my system up yesterday, I’m very impressed by the controller, app and potential!

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System is so “smart” that it deprives you of control and easy adjustment. If you aren’t a farmer, the advanced settings on the app require an advanced understanding of soil composition / water retention that is not explained and is utterly impossible to understand. Meantime, it is watering lightly (<30m/zone, every 4-5 days), contrary to everything my local cooperative extension has taught me about deep watering to have grass roots grow deep ... and this in mid-August on eastern Long Island. Guess what? Grass is brown, plantings, dying for weeks, are now dead. I’ve implored Rachio for assistance, got a robo-reply saying I’d hear from them in 3-5 days. Now more than a week later: Nothing. Now I’m just using a hose-end sprinkler (love it!) and setting the irrigation to go on manually every day or two for at least an hour/zone. Hoping at least that I get my lawn back through artificial resuscitation. The hydrangeas and Rosa rugosa look like lost causes. Hey, thanks Rachio. (And Rachio, don’t send me to your freaking website to spend half a day trying to find solutions in your community. Either give me a manual with detailed instructions, or give me a freakin human being to walk me thru set-up. Otherwise, just send me back my old irrigation controller!!!)