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.

I had a terrible experiences setting up the Rachio 3 just bought from Costco. Tried 4 times setting up and it always stuck at Light 3, which means it has successfully WiFi connection buy failed to connect to Rachio server. My router is 10 ft from the Rachio 3, and my phone showed I had full bars. So it’s not WiFi signals problem. Switching back & forth 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz and still had the same problem. There is no manual, the only things it has is a piece of paper tell you to download load app. There is no LCD, so you won’t able to know what is going when LED flashing. No indication what to to next. The app kept saying there is something wrong and told to retry setup again. While stuck at light 3 with no connection to the server, it’s impossible to use the app to control the Device to water the lawn! The app indicated the device has WiFi connection but you can’t control it. Manually run water from the device worked, but you have no idea which zone it’s doing, remember there is no LCD, googled up their web site, it said each zone should a small LED flashing when watering that zone. I don’t see that while stuck at Light 3. I gave up after 2 hours, each failed attempt the app scanned the device and sent back to their company and said someone would be contacting me to resolve the issue. 2 days still got nothing. I almost take it down to return to Costco and it suddenly have a connection to the server, wow! after 2.5 days. It worked well after that. The device is not smart after all and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to buying it.

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