Rachio

Very easy to set up. I like that you can take photos of your zones, create zone maps using an aerial photo of your home, etc. It is really easy to use as hoc and in scheduled mode. Many devices are one or the other, but this is eased or both. This is real easy to use with Alexa too. Will just say, “Alexa, ask Rachio to run zone 3 for 15 minutes.” Also, I like that I can VERY simply select certain of the zones to run manually (quick run). Literally can have that started in 10-15 seconds of zone selection time. You can also allow professionals (your landscaper or sprinkler repair company) to access it. This allows them to work on your sprinklers without you having to give them your phone. I gave this a 5 because it’s not a 4, but I think it is really a 4.5. So far I can’t fully trust the automatic weather feature. I am all about using water only when needed, but in our climate, if you give too little everything will die. I noticed that it won’t run the sprinklers when the slightest bit of rain has recently occurred. That slight bit of rain would never have been enough to get to the roots of the plants / grass. The good news it is a easy to use that I turned off the auto weather feature, and I just manually disable the Rachio if enough rain has occurred or is obviously going to occur.

The app has an annoying habit of going to a completely blank screen (on iPad Pro using iOS 12.4) at least once a day whenever I switch from a screen (for example, changing a watering duration in a given zone) back to another screen (like ‘home’). There is only a white screen with a smallblack line across the bottom center of the screen. Nothing works to get the app to respond except to delete the app and load it anew from the App Store, which gets old very quickly. Additionally, its ability to postpone scheduled waterings based on upcoming weather forecasts of rain is too dependent (100%) on a weather service, which historically is nowhere near that perfect; while it is relatively easy to override such a “rain skip” of a scheduled watering by clicking on a “run” button, that has become the antithesis of automated watering for me in five months of usage in the DFW Metroplex. It is actually proving to be easier and more efficient to turn OFF all of the apps vaunted watering aids and do a manual shut-off when experience shows heavy rain, saturated ground or high winds

Mechanically, electronically… the system is reliable and durable. However, the App could be a little easier to navigate. (I have been in IT since it was called Data Processing, used punch cards, etc., and involved main frame IBM water cooled 360s, etc. - 1980 …yes, I’m old, 77). Often, a firmware update will sneak-in a new feature or move ‘things’ around, to help the user, me, intuitively find where to make sprinkler, drip watering scheduling adjustments, etc., and I have to try to re-find where i have to navigate to do it this time, then re-train my poor brain in order to accomplish a simple task that i used to know how to do. This sometimes results in irrigation changes i did not intend to make and weeks later i discover them, then i have to re-learn the user interface to try to figure out what i screwed up, where in the numerous areas i was when i messed things up, then how to ‘fix’ the problem i created for myself. REQUEST: Rachio User Interface programmers: Please incorporate user-selectable feature ‘explanations’ that can be accessed by easily tapping a ‘?’ Symbol next to the feature in the App’s user interface. You’ll be helping me to reduce my numerous therapy visits to the local ‘Asylum’, and my dog won’t be so nervous.

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!

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.

The Rachio 3 was very easy to set up. Disconnecting the old systems zone wires and hooking up the Rachio 3 was simple. Connection to the router via the cell phone was seamless. Identifying each zone and taking pictures of the zones was surprisingly easy. Once the home address is entered the sky view of the property appears in the app. You get to draw each zone onto the sky view and the square footage is estimated. Setup asks for the type of grass and type of soil along with the slope for each zone. You can easily test the operation of each zone via the app. I decided not to connect Alexa and Google at this point in time. In use: Already the app skipped one of my watering days because of prior and expected rain. It also skips watering when wind is expected to alter the watering. So far I am thrilled with the ease of use and performance. Being away from home often this system will replace the need to be there manually turning off and on the old irrigation system.

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!!!)

Hooking up the unit was easy enough and programming was easy as well. Love the smart features and notification. This system runs like a charm. I would like to see a couple enhancements. On iOS the Unit sends you notifications like on saturation of soil. However, when you go into the App you can’t see that same information. You can only see that it skipped. It would be nice to see those notifications in history on the app to understand why it skipped. Also on the saturation skip it would be nice to have a choice to reduce water verses skipping all together. I live in a very dry place and the ground doesn’t stay saturated for long. My only choices are on or off. Having a “reduce” option would be great. The Alexa integration needs some work (recognize more commands) but it’s pretty cool to be able to kick off the watering cycles. I have had no issues with this unit and happy that smart tech is here for controlling watering. You don’t have to be an electrician to hook this up and programming is pretty intuitive. Highly recommend this product.

I can setup to water any zones in any order, and for any length of time. I have found for me i do no use the weather forecast to decide to water or not. This is because if i select an amount to shut down the watering if the forecast exceeds that amount . It will bypass the scheduled watering and then it will not rain. It may in fact rain all around me but not at my house. This I believe because of where I live in the foothills. I cannot give enough praise to this system i water any zone anytime from anywhere or change times amount of time or even shut down no matter where i am as long as i have an internet connection. I urge anyone that wants to upgrade or build a new system to use this system for me it has worked flawless and was easy to install into my existing system. Thank you for your time.

I came in really excited to get this controller. The promise of a smart controller that monitors weather patterns and estimates ground water saturation levels to precisely administer just the right amount of water for a healthy lawn and a lower water bill was tantalizing. What I have experienced is a somewhat glitchy app that makes it difficult to modify schedules and leaves my lawn dying. The set up procedure is pretty clean, walking you through zone set up and the details for each zone. One cannot change the type of schedule once set, however (there are three options), so if what you started with isn’t working (not enough water typically), you have to create another program. It also simply doesn’t work reliably in manual mode. I set it up to go on every other day as the “smart “ mode wasn’t watering enough in the high summer heat, and even that mode periodically skips a day for no reason. I’ve had to do more manual watering than ever before with this flawed system. I miss my old simple but reliable Rainbird.

I got this device to handle 11 zones of sprinklers. It’s goes above and beyond anything a rain sensor can do. Rain sensors only control sprinklers while raining. This gem gets weather, both current and future , and adjusts the smart schedule based on your lawn and gardens watering needs. I’m using so much less water. My only pet peeve is when setting up the needs of the zones for smart watering. It basically gives you two options: lawn & garden, and within those two categories you set soil types and shade or sun That’s fine. It’s very helpful. However, it should also include specialty beds for specific watering needs, such as vegetable beds. To compensate for that lack, I use programmed settings to water, or manually turn on “quick watering “ to supplement. Not a huge deal. I just think the developer can go a little further with the app. Still love this thing. And the garage wall mount panel was a snap to install too. ❤️

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!

The app is pretty good for the new smart hose timer but they do not do a good job of providing usage instructions. Some areas that need improvement. * notifications for no water flow detected when the valve should be ON can be enabled. However, notifications are not available for water flow detected when the valve should be OFF. This is important to me because the failure mode of my previous hose timer was water still running and flooding things after the water interval had ended. * there are no notifications for low batteries. They say notifications for dead batteries but I do not know what that really means. There is a battery gauge in the app but, I am not likely to frequently go looking to see what it says. I need to know when the batteries are getting low so I can change them before problems. They say the batteries should last a watering season but that can be year round some places so a low battery warning is important. * I only have support’s word about notifications for lost connection meaning the hub and/or valve are offline. Dead batteries could look like that. Internet down could look like that. Valve out of hub range could look like that. Hub out of WiFi range could look like that. Etc. Users need to be made aware of anything that indicates something is not right or that seems likely to soon not be right.

I was first introduced to the Rachio controller when our church installed one. it was a piece of cake to walk around the grounds and do quick runs on the sprinkler zones and then you could shut it off make a quick repair an adjustment and turn it back on to make sure everything was functioning. I then purchased a Rachio controller for my personal residence - what a wonderful tool! I have drip lines that squirrels occasionally eat through and when I have a leak I can fix that, then start and stop the zone make quick fixes or adjustments without running back-and-forth to the controller or yelling at my wife, ‘turn it on turn it on’ or ‘no turn it off turn it off’. thank you for making such a wonderful product that has made my life so much easier

I can’t describe what a monumental effort and change the app went through over this winter! It really went from crap to wow. From a below average app to an intelligent informative UI and overall functional. Hat’s off to your dev team. I’m truly impressed. I see that now you give a notification for flex daily why a weather skip didn’t happen; love it! I’m a lawn lover and this app makes me do it so seamlessly. I didn’t give 5 stars because I don’t want you to think there isn’t room for improvement :) I think a more concise graph report that shows yearly use like a combo graph where I can show galons of usage as well as weather implication on that; compare year to year or same Month last year. Reminders to potentially fertilize my lawn as well as aerate it that can be baked within the app. This app has a lot of potential but you’ve done an amazing job! Kudos. I do feel bummed out though that I bought the 2nd gen rachio right before the 3rd gen came out

…the software is not. Have had this for a full season now and here is why two stars from me. Got it to connect to HomeKit initially and since then have never been able to get it to connect again (mult resets, network restarts, etc…on Synology routers). Gave up but this is one of the reasons why I got it. The scheduling is way more clunky than it needs to be. This is supposed to be a smart system but the way to setup manual sessions can be a lot easier. Do some Googling and you will see many asking the dev team to simplify some of this. They do not seem too responsive to what the community is asking for, which to me is a miss from a dev team. They are good at keeping up with small updates but to me, it needs a lot more attention. I am stuck cause I already spent money on it but will def be looking at other options and possibly just going back to my old school analog controller. Scheduling was a whole heck of a lot easier and if I can’t connect to HomeKit, might as well go back.

Rachio removed the feature to water all zones on the fly! I used to be able to select all zones and immediately run them consecutively based on a time allotment. Also, I don’t understand why it keeps pushing this new product Thrive on me. Thrive shows up on my home page and even has its own tab. I’m not sure but it looks like a grass or fertilizer product and I’m a xeriscape native garden, like most smart people are converting too; esp., if you’re in SoCal. I’m also an app designer, this UI isn’t as great as it used to be. I’d prefer more infographs on the home relevant to my garden water usage and local weather forecast, not ads and Thrive info. I don’t even know if my plants have been watered unless I go out there and physically check because it’s a few steps to find history on the app. I’ve got thousands of dollars of rare plants I’ve grew on 8 acres tied into this controller and this system is now stressing me out, so I’m looking into better system. There should also be an active overlay modal of the current progress during a fly run.

This sprinkler controller is this easiest sprinkler controller I’ve ever used in the 40 years that I’ve used them. Easy to set up, easy to understand, and educational to boot! I have 2 homes and use them in both homes now. The only down side, is when your WiFi is out, so is the controller. An improvement might be to have dial up phone control as back up. This is only relevant to those with more than one home 100’s or 1000’s of miles apart! The device is extremely well made, intuitive, and durable. That’s hard to find these days. I like the flexibility of having an eight station unit in my smaller home, but a 16 station on my acreage. Both work the same and don’t take professionals to install or maintain. One can’t say that about most electronic devices!

Rachio app doesn’t let you enter a non US address. As a result if you intend using Rachio watering programmer outside of the US, you will most probably have to email their support to enter your non-US address; and even then you might as well continue having problems. In my own case after contacting Rachio support and requesting them to enter my local non US address, instead of correcting my problem they moved my Rachio time zone to another time zone which is minus 9 hours behind my time zone. As a result in order to setup Rachio to start watering locally at, say 9am local time I have to program it to start watering at 12 midnight Rachio app time…such a mess! In addition: forget any smart watering functions, the weather environment that Rachio thinks my garden is located at, is not of course my local weather, but rather the weather of that minus 9 hours other-side-of the-world time zone that Rachio support have setup my Rachio watering computer!

I run two of these at two different homes. The convenience of being able to start and stop from a remote location is game changing. For those who realize that sprinklers need adjustment on occasions I have no more of adjusting a sprinkler, waking back to a controller to turn it on, then a walk back to check if it is adjusted right, then another walk back to turn it off. Now I adjust, turn the zone on with my phone, check the sprinkler head and then turn the zone off.... without taking a step. When you finally install one of these you will remember this review and will have wished you would have acted sooner. No problem with the controller or the app for going on 5 years. You will not make a mistake with a Rachio controller.

Very easy to install, setup, and connect up. I don't know what the past versions were like, but this one does an awesome job making the system do what it should. I'm very impressed by the weather connection. After installing, we had some rains. It held off from watering to the next day. Very easy to organize the schedule and spontaneous water as needed. The wifi connection couldn't have been easier. Scheduling can be simple, create it and forget about it, or highly detailed in which you can micromanage every zone of your yard on a daily basis. Extremely versitile. The support for this is tremendous. As I look at the reviews, whether good or bad, there seems to be always someone from Rachio giving supportive feedback. They have a comprehensive list of articles that help the user get the most of of their products. The only thing that I have found is that since they removed the "Scheduling" from the bottom menu and placed in the "Calendar" section. They needed to update that in there online info as well. Someone else had mentioned this in a post as well, if Apple were to design a wireless sprinkler timer, this would be it. Quality packaging and product design.

Good as a manual controller but the “intelligent” part is aweful and unreliable. I’ve had it with this setting. Yesterday we were deluged with rain. The controller sent a notification for today’s schedule watering to be skipped. I thought this was a great idea. When I woke this morning, I read a notification that today’s watering schedule was complete! But wait, the Rachio unit notified me today’s would be skipped. Looking at more notifications, the unit changed its mind saying, “Due to a change in the weather, today’s watering will occur.” When did I get this notification? At 3:30 in the morning! Thanks I’m always up at 3:30 to check my watering notifications. To make matters worse, we are forecast to get storms and possible heavy rain all weekend. Additionally, I can only manually skip the next scheduled watering. Why? If I know what’s coming, how my lawn looks, knows what it needs, why can I not skip two watering? Th nicest feature about the unit is being able to control it remotely.

This app is pretty decent, but the developers have made a big oversight. Absent, is the ability to ”skip” specific dates and times. From an app that is supposed to provide freedom and flexibility to users, this is a huge miss! There are times, like today, where I need to skip both watering sessions for 24 hours. I am not able to do so. The app only lets the user skip the current day’s watering schedule and the first of the following day. There are countless other scenarios whereby a user may want to skip only specific waterings. The developers need to stop trying to get into the user’s head so much that they prevent basic functionality that may be useful to people on an individual basis. This needs to be fixed! The suggestion was made in the Rachio forums several times by many people over the past two years, yet the capability is still missing. The developers need to fix this oversight!!

I absolutely love having the ability fix a sprinkler head without having to run back and forth from the garage to the zone I’m working on. When doing sprinkler work it is important to bleed the line after the new riser or head is installed. Dirt that is in the pipe will clog up the filter inside the head. I bleed the line by pulling up the pop up part of the head and gently clamping the vice grips on the shaft so it doesn’t go down again. Then I unscrew the top and take out the plastic filter. I then step away and reach for this app to turn on that zone. About 5 seconds is all you need to flush out dirt. Finally, I insert the filter, screw the top back on and remove the vice grips. No more getting wet or running constantly back and forth to the garage!

I’ll cut to the chase. You can read all of this app's great things in other reviews. There’s a lot to love! However, the initial setup is incredibly not polished. Here are the things that I needed to know when setting up that the app didn’t tell me: -Is the app having trouble finding the controller? Call customer service, and they get it taken care of. App says “tap help above,” but…there is no “help” to tap -use a master valve? Oops, I didn’t tell you you have to turn on that setting! -oh yeah, we DO have a yard map to use! Sorry we didn’t tell you, even though your inputs affect our recommendations -speaking of the map, your zones better only have four corners and not separate areas that run in one zone. The map doesn’t support them otherwise -got more than one type of plant in a zone? Sorry, have a pick one The first two were the worst to experience. The app needs so much more guidance for the initial setup. I’m technologically literate, and I had issues finding answers online, so I can only imagine what someone who isn’t as tech-savvy as me would go through if they had these issues. Even the customer service agents I talked to expressed how odd it is that the app doesn’t provide better setup guidance.

Bought this to replace an old controller that would no longer accept programming commands. On the Rachio, I was very impressed by the ease of installation and setup. I love all of the smart features such as automatic adjustment based on weather forecast/actual weather…even without sensors. I also like the convenience of total control with the mobile app, notifications that the sprinklers are running, and historical tracking of how much it has run. After having to instruct my neighbor how to get into the house while we were on vacation to turn off the sprinklers that had been running all day with the old controller, remote app operation was a must have on my new controller and I have no complaints so far!

I am getting random quick start messages....saying it a quick start has started when I didn’t activate one but nothing is really running. I have run quick start and after it is done I get a message saying quick start was manually stopped when it was not. These random messages don’t match up to any action and it’s really annoying. Even the rain sensor/freeze sensor notification are dumb....it does not tell you that the rain sensor is activated or deactivated like the before. The message was very clear with what was going on....now it does not. I am hoping they fix some of these issues in future updates. Will bump up to 3 stars. App has a long way to go. Recent updates have helped with my issues. Still some bugs and has a lot of design improvements that are needed.

Our Rachio 2 Sprinkler Controller is awesome! We’ve had it for 3+ years and I can’t believe we ever had one of those old school control boxes. I love using the Rachio app. It makes it so easy to keep the yard looking good while conserving water. The ability to name and add a picture of each zone allows my wife or landscaper to utilize the app and know exactly how the system is setup. Another great feature is that Rachio sends out seasonal adjustments for each zone which insures that you don’t over or under water your grass and gardens through out the year. Don’t wait another minute reading about other controllers, this is the best sprinkler controller in the market!!!

Fair app and does what it say it does. Decently smart. Several shortcomings. No ability to set up for seeding new grass. Somewhat intelligent weather skipping (rain skip). Huge disappointment that they want $30 for an in app purchase to do live valve monitoring. That is obscene. Asinine cycle-soak algorithm that only works with certain types and is very limited. Poor explanation of different settings. I spent a while setting up advanced settings like sprinkler efficiency and inches per hour, but the controller does not make good use of any of these settings. Calendar view is not useful. I wasted my time with the Rachio. It's a good unit for $300 but this $30 app purchase for a simple software update tells me what they think of their customers. I will be switching to hunter hyrdawise for better functionality and support once the Rachio unit dies.

Two weeks ago I planted some new plants. I had just installed the Rachio so I thought it would be a good time to invest in more plants. Since installed, the Rachio only ran two times. In two weeks. And those two times, it only ran one zone one day and another zone on the other. And we just had some of the hottest temperatures here in California. I guess I made a mistake setting up my schedule to be “flex daily”. All four new plants are shriveled up and dead. Unfortunately we didn’t see them to know what was happening. I just trusted the Rachio to be better, especially given its feature to be able the check the weather in order to know how often to water. If the hottest days of the year, with no chance of rain, doesn’t trigger a watering cycle, then what does? I’m not sure whether the flex schedules are even worth it. I look at future watering events right now and I see: Tuesday, 4 days from now, the roses will get watered. Then the next Monday, 6 days later, the driveway trees get watered. I’m not sure what the heck is going on but this is going to kill a lot of plans. It’s only water one zone every 6 days?!??? I’ve added a flex monthly schedule now to see if that works better and of course in going to be double checking the history to make sure things are getting adequate water. So much for an INTELLIGENT irrigation system.

My number one complaint that totally weights my review is the lack of notification BEFORE the sprinklers come on thereby giving you some time to either move stuff off your lawn like laundry or to skip the water cycle. This functionality is available in $70 smart watering systems. Also, unfortunately, the smart watering doesn’t work that well for my location in the SF Bay Area. The system is currently over watering by maybe 2x what it should given the weather and how soaked some things are like the lawn. I’ve tried resetting the schedule with the same results. I’d be nice if it gave me a quick survey or way to give feedback after a watering cycle so that it could use machine learning or some form of logic to adjust dynamically as needed when there are discrepancies between what the app thinks and reality. I hope they get there because everything else is quite nice.

This is our 2nd wifi irrigation controller. First we had the Blossom (sadly discontinued because it never worked right after Scotts bought them out!) which was perfect. Many functions but the most useful to us was being able to set it for an hour after sunrise so we could check for broken sprinkler heads. It automatically tracked sunrise times & adjusted according. Rachio unfortunately is missing this particular function, so i have to re-adjust every weekend to following the shorter daylight :( The Blossom setup was very intuitive where as the Rachio was a little more involved and i had to re-do it twice before it each zone was accurately location labeled. We only have 8 zones - so if you had 12 or 16 it would be extremely tedious! Thats why it loses a star. Otherwise no complaints. Keeps its wifi connection from day to day. (Blossom kept disconnecting after Scotts took over :( Our city allows us to water twice a week (Tues/Fri) so the custom scheduling was also important. Have been using it for 2 months now. If the sunrise timing function is fixed i’d give it 5 stars… i’ll update my review if it is added! Please !!!

The app works well and is intuitive but has a couple issues that when resolved would give a 5 star app. 1st issue is different watering programs can cancel each other out in unexpected ways. IDK whats going on but if you want to water 2 days a week on the whole landscape and also daily in one section you have seeded out, you can end up not watering at all and no error or warning thats happening. I had to trial and error to find a way to get multiple programs to run. Secondly, the Rain Skip skips way too much, but at least it notifies me by email when it Rain Skips so I can water manually. Rain Skip needs to be a lot more accurate about actual rain.

This is a great sprinkler control and I love it and it worked well for about a year. Then they claim Apple changed something and now for 1.5 years they have simply promised they are working with Apple to resolve the issue. I understand it takes some time, but over a year and half for a deciding feature. All my smart products are HomeKit enabled and it is frustrating that I paid $150 extra for this control compared to the competition for a feature that does not work anymore. I find it ridiculous that they still advertise HomeKit compatibility on their website. So I guess the point of this review is do not buy this product thinking you will get HomeKit. You can buy it for being a great controller for a sprinkler if you want, but for the price point they charge you can get something much cheaper with the same features.

I’m very happy with my new Rachio app, sprinkler system, timer- everything! Even the install went well. I can check to see what’s up with the weather and the predictions of when my system will be planning on working, and when and why it’s not scheduled anymore. I can do a quick run when I want to, to freshen up a lawn that had a long hard day in the sun. And it only takes a second to press one or two clicks on the app. Instead of manually overriding my old system and going into the garage 10 times - to find out I’ve reset everything and have to reprogram- again! I’m just so happy about this system. Can’t say enough

Rachio’s Flex Daily schedules are amazing! Using zone details and local weather data, Rachio monitors the water level in each zone of my lawn to automate my watering. Using a gas tank analogy, it knows if the zone’s water level is empty or full and refills it exactly at a half tank automagically on a zone by zone basis. Some zone water more frequently than others to meet the needs of the plants. There’s not uncommon for the system to skip watering for a week or two at a time, allowing my lawn to use every drop Mother Nature sends my way. The app also gives me control of my sprinklers at my fingertips when I need to fix a head or just want to spray the dog in the back yard! Great product. Highly recommend!

When I originally got the Rachio controller and the App it was fantastic. Several month ago Rachio decided to update the entire app to a new version. Apparently because the “community” has ask for it. After that, I ran zone 1 and 2 and 3 ran as well. Rachio support staff told me because my valves are maybe dirty. So, I cleaned them and of course it didn’t fix it. Now, I know that the firmware on my controller with the new app caused the issue. Not only did I waste my time but it just proofs how rubbish the app update was. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. So, I was told by the Rachio tech support to update force my firmware because I have the old version and it was reported to have my issues. However, that update didn’t work and online it says the firmware update is done automatically. That is NOT the case. Now I am waiting for another email or call from Rachio to fix the issue.

We use a Rachio controller to run our lawn sprinklers, and hose timers to water our shrubs. This year’s update to the controller is counterintuitive. It used to be so easy to program, not any more. But at least once u figure it out, it works well. I particularly like the automatic seasonal adjustments, and integration with my Davis weather station, which prevents unnecessary watering when rain is expected or has occurred. The hose timers are another matter. Feels like they were developed by a totally different company. The programming is hard and unreliable. The integration with our weather station does not work. The reporting of past events is inconsistent and unreliable. And the latest updates burdensome and unreliable. It took about a dozen attempts and an hour on the phone with technical support, to upgrade the hub. And then I had to retrieve all the timers, remove and reinstall the batteries, wait 10 minutes for each timer to hopefully upgrade its firmware (one at a time). And in the end, I still don’t know if the upgrades were successful. For example, the app shows three different firmware versions for each timer, even though I followed the identical process for each. Bottom line, the sprinkler controller is worth the effort, but look elsewhere for your hose timers.

Several years ago, I had a Rachio 1 system on a different property. Now on this property (acreage) with Rachio 3 - not so much. First of all, the app is mainly sales. No, I do NOT want valve monitoring OR to visit your store - STOP ASKING ME EVERY FIVE SECONDS. Secondly, the app seems to have a mind of its own. I look at it, and it’s not set up the way I intended. So I correct that. Then look at it again. It has once again reverted to the way it set itself up. It’s missing some vital “nice to have” features for sure. Like an accommodation for new plantings that need water in smaller amounts more frequently. It can’t handle mixed soil types, variable slopes or mixed plantings per zone when it calculates its watering schedule. Sure, it would be nice to have a better-planned sprinkler system. The brain dead installers, whoever they were, didn’t take any of that into account either. But it “would be nice” to be able to compensate for that through the app when retrofitting automation in. Not a chance with this app. I’d throw away the the entire controller if I could find one that had better customization skills and better control locks. Even if I had to pay double the price.

A powerful, but not very intuitive, user interface. I still can’t figure out why it ignores some of my settings. One of my circuits simply would not obey my wishes and always ran for durations I had not set, no matter what setting I changed. I finally had to delete and rebuild my entire schedule and profile. The rain and saturation skip works most of the time, but absolutely not always. More than a few times I had to intervene and stop a run during predicted rain, and more than a few times I had to stop a run when the ground was very obviously saturated. The UI needs a redesign with an emphasis on obeying user input, or at least explaining why it doesn’t want to accept the input, and offering the solution.

I was excited to control my new sprinkler system with my phone, but imagine how disappointed I was when I couldn’t even “add a controller” and set up my system. I can’t enter my location without the app crashing, which is the first step in setting the whole thing up. Until the app is fixed I have a $200+ piece of plastic on my wall that is nothing more than a wall ornament. How can an app based product fail so badly with the app?! Incredibly frustrating. Especially since all the “reviews” are very favorable. I hope this is just a glitch that will be fixed soon. Until then, this will remain a 1 star review.

I bought a Rachio because my dad‘s just bought a new house which had a Rachio installed as well.I didn’t do much research about this sprinkler controller, but I can say this app is excellently laid out. This app makes the entire unit more fun to use and extremely reliable. I’ve already received one notification that my zones have been automatically adjusted for the amount of time they watered due to the season and I’ve already received a notification that the zones will not water because rain was in the forecast, which it rained hard that day. Love this app, highly recommend the Rachio 3.

First I have to say I just only swapped out an existing Controller. The SetUp and Install was way easier than I expected. I only had one problem. The wi-Fi signal in the yard is marginal in places so I shut off the Wi-Fi and went to cell service. When I did that the program exited from the set up program and I had to manually go in and set up everything. I found no option to get the setup program going again, so possible I missed something? Please add this option. I manually went into each zone and setup those then added a schedule. Hopefully I didn’t miss anything. I will eventually update the review on how well it works.

I mostly like the app, but it almost 100% of the time fails to load my data on start. It either sits on the logo for a long time until I restart it, or it shows an error and I can tap retry. Once it connects, it seems to work fine … mostly. Often when I make a change (e.g., edit a schedule, start or stop a quick run, edit zone info), it does not refresh to reflect the change. Sometimes navigating to a different screen and back works. Sometimes I have to exit and restart the app. Other times it doesn’t show the change no matter what I do and I have to redo it. That significantly reduces my trust that it will do what it shows without double and triple checking the settings.

I swear this company must pay for positive reviews. This app is challenging to use and not intuitive. On the home page I want to know the current status of the system. Is it running? If so where? What program is it running? I have to search for this information. It’s particularly challenging if you configure a program that runs overnight (starting on one day and ending on another). I want to be able to easily program run X amount of mins in Y zone on (specify days of the week). It shows that you can do that but it doesn’t work right. I selected M, W, F and on the calendar the program appears T, Th, Sat… it boggles the mind. Then I select the duration and the system changes it. I think it’s trying to do too much and makes things over complicated. Sometimes simple is better.

Truly one of the best products ever invented! The simplicity of controlling your entire irrigation system from your phone is priceless. I have not used the smart weather feature and was recommended not to given we live in CO (where the weather is unpredictable with regards to rain). The only negative (as the reviews say) is the poor customer service. Takes over 2 hours to get through to a rep (I called for a question before I purchased the unit). However, the product is so easy to install and operate that 99% of you will never need to speak to their service desk. For those that need to, good luck...

We had an old “dumb” timer/controller before that was impossible to program or change - it was watering non-stop, and the zones were all screwed up (our PT landscaper told us we were outthinking it!). Our new Rachio is so easy to program, it’s basically set it and forget it. But if we need to spot water one zone, or really, to change ANYTHING, the app is a breeze to use. Plus, as it’s tied into the weather system it automatically doesn’t water when it’s forecast to rain. We have saved so much water over our previous timer. This thing has MORE THAN paid for itself 10x over. We love it.

No more standing in the heat of the garage. Just manually run, when I think necessary, station by station. It tracks performance. Yes I’ve had it since June didn’t really use it for the first few months, read up on it and then started using it. I do the manual ‘pulls’ on it rather than automatic. It’s just nice to be able to touch up a station while you’re drinking your morning coffee. It would seem a useful bit of information to be able to take over to your MUD and show them how much of your water is not going down the sewer and get it and adjustment on your bill.

I purchased another Rachio 3 to replace a older model . Sounds simple enough right ! Wrong the set on my phone kept defaulting to my older models Tag number which resulted in the notice I was off line . I even deleted the account and tried to change the old ID tag number on my phone . No good . I dropped my acct still no good . Here’s the sick thing . There used to be a telephone call in with a live person to walk you through the set up . NO LONGER HAPPENING Just a screen to contact a “ person” who knows about that . That gets you no where . What a shame on them to dis the consumer. Terrible service . I suggest you do not purchase this item.

The onboarding experience was one of the worst I have ever had. Lucky I am tech savvy and was able to get threw it: The app wrongly found my location. After I gave it my address, the app put me in some random location on the map. Then the app allows you to move the pin with no information to where you are on the map (e.g., highways, town names, etc.). I tried the other way to add my address and found no states in the dropdown. Turns out you need to select you country first, which they don’t tell you. Very frustrating. CRASHED when setting up first zone…after finally getting threw the basic stuff. When opening the app up again, the setup process was over and I couldn’t find how to start that again. So, I deleted my controller to try and start again. After deleting my controller, they didn’t mention anywhere that I needed to also reset the controller by holding down the button to reset it. Ugh. When I got the first zone, again…, the app crashed at a different place and messed up my setup. So, I resolved to figure out the app with no guidance. I was pretty close to giving up and returning the device. So far after figuring out all these problems, the app seems to be working okay…Time will tell…🤞🏻.