I bought one of these from woot and have been very pleased with it. Rain skip works great and it is nice to be able to advance stations locally from my phone to mark sprinklers for aeration instead of running down to the basement and doing it each time.
GEN1 Owner here, love this thing. Simple to install, even easier to use. Your local utility may also offer a rebate to bring cost down further. You really have to do nothing once its setup, assuming that’s your thing. I’ve got mine looking at my PWS station for ultra accurate weather data. During the wet season it basically shuts itself off, and ramps up watering during the dry season. Making changes to your schedule is a simple as opening the app on your phone. Really convenient when the kids decide to camp in a tent on the lawn. Also great during spring maintenance.
I wonder of these units can be hacked by a foreign power then programmed to run up my water bill into the thousands of dollars ??
I sense a diabolical genius at work, here.
If your yard becomes a swamp, you’ll know your were hacked. You’d need a lot of yard for thousands of dollars to rack up. water is cheap, this thing makes it even cheaper.
You can get sensors for this and not rely on weather people but rather the actual weather that is happening on your property. Depending on how accurate your local weather forecasters are, the sensors might be the better option anyway.
I have both(rain sensor was leftover from hunter controller). The software rain sensor works very well. you couuld definitely do without an auxillary rain sensor.
The adapter that comes with this is an AC/AC adapter (not AC to DC). It takes an input of: 120V at 60Hz and outputs 24V (AC) at 1000 mA. You might have significant difficulty in South America. Plus, to work correctly, this device needs the server connection, as well as local weather data… Or else it is no smarter than any other sprinkler controller.
Another Gen1 owner here. trying to find an excuse to upgrade to gen2.
After 2 bidets…the Rachio is the greatest woot EVER.
Anyone who owns a hunter sprinkler control, who knows what it’s like to try and program and reprogram that (^)&% mess every year will rejoice in the absolute simplicity of controlling your irrigation from your phone.
The big beef with Gen 1 was the syncing procedure, which used a light pattern on your phone to connect and was very fussy. But once synced this Rachio is simply fantastic to use.
This is a fantastic bit of home tech.
Isn’t there a 3rd generation that added manual controls so your sprinkler company can close it without you having to be there with your phone app working with them on each zone??? I have two 1st generation ones.
I got the Gen 2 from woot a while back. This controller is a game changer. One of my best woots ever! 8 “weather intelligence skips” so far this month. Saves me $$$$.
I got one of the 8 zone 2nd gen units from Woot back in November, and I kept putting off the installation until July because the included power cord wouldn’t reach the outlet up on my garage ceiling. Ultimately, my old power supply was the same power output, and I just needed to splice the end from the included power supply onto my existing wires.
Actual installation is quite easy. Just put some labels on your wires as you release them from your old controller. Set up was also easy via the app. You move through setting up zones, in which you tell the app the kind of plants/grass, slope of the land, type of soil, and amount of sunlight.
From all of the above info, the device sets up how much time to water each zone. I set it to the “smart” function. It estimates the soil saturation and will water each zone as needed.
So far, my Rachio has been excellent, and avoids watering excessively and varies it’s watering very nicely.
Very happy with the purchase, and Rachio is much smarter at programming than I am…
Does anyone know if it allows you to set the pump relay per zone?
I use a pump relay for rid-o-rust and only need it in 3 out of my 8 zones. My controller only allows for the pump to either be on or off full time and I cannot set it per zone. Would save me a lot of money if I could set the pump per zone.