I’m trying to figure out what generation this is but the quick installation and FAQs links no longer work.
Edit: it’s 2nd gen, and after doing some research I’m a bit hesitant. They pushed 3rd gen for being compatible with their new “wireless flow meter” which sounds pretty awesome, but then they discontinued it… Seems a bit suspect.
I bought an 8 zone Generation 3 Rachio in 2019 and I’m real happy with it. To be sure, it looks exactly like this one that’s for sale here in Woot. The Generation 3 Rachio is still up for sale at Amazon at double the price of this version.
It is Gen 2.
The links under the product features tab are broken. Could it be because Gen2 is discontinued?
I bought the 2nd Gen from Woot last year around this time and I’ve been very happy with it.
tldr;
Overall, it’s not with $200, but it’s well worth $100. Just don’t expect perfection.
Cons wise:
If you have a variety of soil types and/or sprinkler head types, it can be a bit of back and forth trying to get each zone setup with the right settings so it knows how long each zone should be watered.
There have definitely been times when it ran after or during a hard rain. When that happens it’s always hard to tell if my internet, Rachio’s network, or the local weather station reporting the data that had problems. But it only happened 1-3 last year. Much better than my track record of remembering to turn it off.
Needs internet to be able to predict weather or setup.
Pros:
Being able to test the system by turning it on using your smart phone instead of walking to the garage is so much more convenient than I expected. I’d hate to go back.
App is easy to use.
Lots of tweaks to be able to adjust how it calculates water run time on each zone.
Handle short internet down times well.
I’ve had mine for a couple years and it works great for my pretty generic 8 station sprinkler system. I had an issue setting it up with my pretty locked down network, but moved it to my guest network and that solved the issue. The only issue I have now are broken sprinkler heads that I need to get fixed, so that station remains off until that gets fixed. Quite happy with my Rachio 2nd Gen sprinkler controller.
I’ve had this for 2 seasons so far. I didn’t understand the original system that was on my sprinkler system when I moved in. This was my first irrigation system. I had thought I could install this myself, and while I’m relatively handy, this was beyond my ability. I had my irrigation company install it and they were done in under 30 minutes.
There have been many days it’s canceled its run due to rain. Mine has never run during the rain that I’m aware of.
I especially love how simple it is to program because I’ve been working on sections of my yard each year and reseeding when done. This is so easy to set a watering schedule for that area to water the seeds 2 times per day in addition to the regular watering program I set.
I bought mine in winter of 2019 from woot and installed it last spring. Very happy with it. I replaced a 15 year old controller that worked fine, but I love the ability to do remote control in the fall for blowout. I hooked in my existing rain sensor and I get notifications when it is active. The savings here for a gen 2 made me really ignore any benefits of the gen 3.
Rachio moved them on us. Here they are:
Not really suspect. They came out with an updated model with more features.
I had the gen 2 at my previous house and loved it. Put in a gen 3 in this house.
I got the 2nd generation 8 zone in a previous Woot sale and have had it installed for a few months. Overall I’ve been very happy with it.
It has reliably skipped watering around rainy days for me and the weather awareness works well.
Where I live I can only water on specific days of the week, and Rachio’s Flex Daily smart scheduling doesn’t play well with this restriction. I was confused on this, but tech support helped me out.
I have my unit mounted outside in the weatherproof enclosure available from Amazon.
Is there any published end-of-life information on the Gen 2?
I haven’t seen anything. They’re still supporting Gen 1 from what I see.
I guess you could ask them.
To add to your pros/cons
Internet.
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It’s not plug and play but I set up a SSID on my wifi just for this device and block an intranet access and set it’s bandwidth to 1mbps (lowest I could go on my router). I can do a total of 12 ssid’s on my routers so not like I miss one. Just makes it easy to re-connect (see nr 2)
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My first year of using my device, I unplugged it from Oct to May. It had to be re-connected as if it was OOB. Wasn’t hard to reconnect but still, if you unplug it for extended period of time, it will need to be reconnected.
I have gen 1 with 8 connections x2. I have 8 total control heads, 4 per zone but various sprinklers. The time consuming chore is to set up the slop, soil, exposure and vegetation. I took pictures and use them to keep me strait when I’m looking at the zones to test. Love the wind and rain settings. I’d almost go to this model and keep my older one as a backup. On the fence.
I meant the wireless flow meter was discontinued. Why discontinue the piece that was a major selling point of gen 3? From what I’ve read, lots of people had issues with them and that’s why they were discontinued, but the company denies that.
I just received my order, but I was sent the Rachio 3e and not the Rachio 2. The Rachio 2 is a better product with more features and at the price was a great deal. The Radio 3e is a lesser product with barely any savings.
I’ve done almost 70 woots and this is the first time I was sent a worse product than what I ordered.
Has this happened to anyone else?
I’m very sorry for the error. Please reach out to Woot! Customer Service.
From a browser, use the Woot! Customer Service form.
In the Woot! App, choose Account from the bottom navigation and then Support.
Note: Woot! Customer Service replies go to the email address on your Woot! account, not your Amazon login email if used/different.