Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

A lot of home automation solutions have "green" subtext of saving money because of adding more controls to ensure that use is when needed. Lawn sprinklers is actually the first generation of home controls... before the Z-Wave and Wi-Fi... watering lawns on a timer that will adhere to a 7x24 plan. Rachio makes this level of control the entry level, adding many more levels of water management that it almost seems like you have your own groundskeeper monitoring the weather forecast, evaluating what type of soil, runoff, and plants/grass. If we could possibly ignore the web and phone interface, just the feature of skipping watering when there's going to be a rainstorm, or a frost, is priceless. Well I guess not... You certainly can put a price on how much you save. This is my second Rachio Iro. I purchased the 1st generation Rachio 8-zone for my last house and it was a champ. The only thing that I didn't like and was frankly, maddening... was the blink method of pairing the 1st gen to your Wi-Fi SSID. In fact, after many attempts of blink pairing, both my Rachio 1st gen and my Samsung S5 flew across the room. I eventually hid in a dark room, hid under a Harry Potter invisibility cloak, and paired it up. The resulting awesome watering made me completely forget about the blink pain... until dredging up the horrible memories for your benefit... thanks for that... In my new house, the existing Hunter HRC 9-zone controller was ok, but how could I live with a Hunter fixed schedule controller after having an internet "cloud" irrigation solution... The Rachio Iro 2nd Gen 16 zone arrived before the irrigation was needed in Ohio. 1st glance... It's much bigger than a 1st gen, and the shape is similar to the spot that the Hunter left on the wall. No repainting needed... nice. This new controller has a cover instead of an install plate. I was happy to see that there was no blink sensor and that Rachio invested in wireless setup with RF. I used my cell to take a picture of my existing Hunter HRC's wires ensuring that the colors and their termination was easily visible in the picture. Unscrewed all of the wire terminals and tossed the Hunter into the trash. I couldn't bear the thought of someone buying it used and missing the water saving opportunity of a cloud irrigation controller. The Iro was secured into place quickly with 4 screws... I'm sure two would have been fine, but there were more holes, more screws, and my Ryobi drill was barely used. Since I wouldn't need it again for this simple install... It was put away soon after. I took a look at all of the zone wire leads and trimmed a few of them down to expose less conductor. Using my cell, I pressed the main valve and two commons into the C and MC accordingly. Following the colors from my cell picture, I pressed in the 9 zones... Simple... 5 minutes. Plugging in the Iro to the wall and controller, I used the cell application to register the controller. Because I have a Main Valve in my system, I opened the settings and advanced and checked the main valve on the Rachio app. I then had to go find the cover of the Hunter, because I forgot to get the zone labels... another quick phone picture and the Hunter cover was back in the trash. This isn't my first Rachio Iro rodeo, so defining each zone with the name, type of irrigation heads, what is being watered (flowers, shrubs, grass, etc.), slope, soil type... pretty simple. While turning on each zone manually to test that they trigger, I took a picture of the good aqua shot, and updated the zone with the picture. Now my OCD kicks in and I use a soil moisture hydrometerDr.Meter® Moisture Sensor Meter, Soil Water Monitor, Hydrometer for Gardening, Farming, Indoor/Outdoor Use (4-in-1 Advanced Version) to put in an initial setting for the zone as well as use a laser to measure the area of the zone Laser Distance Meter, Handheld Range Finder Measure with LCD Backlight Display, Area/Volume/Distance/Pythagoras Calculation, Self-Calibration Rangefinder, Tape Measure 0.05 to 40m(0.16 to 131ft). My need for accuracy resolved, I go inside and find a comfy chair and login to rachio.com to setup my watering programs. Since my front yard gets a ton of sun and my backyard is a forested preserve, I setup two programs. There will be times that I'll want to water the front without the back, so keeping them on separate programs makes disabling the backyard program a simple switch. My municipal water only allows watering on 3 days of the week depending on your street address, astrological sign, and great grandmother's maiden name (the one you liked). I use the "fixed days" feature or risk fines from the aqua police. Even though the flexible daily or flexible monthly schedule may be the most effective for water savings and ensuring watering is only when needed, limiting to 3 days a week still gives the Iro opportunity to skip and change watering duration based on weather data and seasonal impacts. I forgot to tell you that while I reconnected the rain sensor from the hunter, it was flapping activated/deactivated continuously. So I disabled it. It's 12 years old and probably fouled -- until I get a ladder up there to clean it, I'll leave it disabled... Then again... I'm not sure I really need my own rain sensor if I'm using a nearby weather station less than a mile away. So the old sensor may just be taken down -- how can it be more accurate than a local internet available weather station? Both the shocking nature of seeing how many gallons are really used when you are watering, and the gratification of how much you are saving when the Iro skips, easily justifies the purchase of this controller. Other features that seem to just make sense are the cycle approach to watering and the newly added manual controls on the Rachio Iro. When watering, your Iro will break a 15-minute watering session into multiples - so instead of watering a zone for 15 minutes, it will water it for 5 minutes, go to the next zone, finish all zones, then start another cycle that will water the zone another 5 minutes... going through all zones... finally completing a 3rd cycle to finish. This minimizes oversaturation and runoff, allowing the water that you are spraying to soak in, using less total water for the same impact. awesome! Now the Rachio app allows you to setup a guest to operate your system manually, or additional admin users to add or change your programming. If you are owner and have someone who is Rachio capable and maintains your property, these options will fit your specific need. But if you just want the guy that is fixing the last spray head that you destroyed with the lawn edger, he can turn on and off a zone by cycling through the manual controls on the panel itself... nice upgrade from 1st gen. Integration? Well if you're the type that wants to add more controls and automation to your irrigation system. Odds are you will consider other automation in your house. Right now, your Iro will integrate with Nest Protect 2.0 sensors. So that if you have a fire, nest will tell your Iro to cycle through all of your zones continuously to create a moisture barrier to help prevent fires from spreading. I'm sure that if you just ran out of a house fire, some spraying water may also be able to cool you down fast or put out your clothes when you stop-drop-and-roll. We hope to never use these type of integrations, but they would be great if they work as advertised. I don't have Nest, but use MiCasaVerdi's Vera Plus home controller. The Rachio API is published and available, but there currently isn't an app developed for the Vera MiOS. I hope that there's future integration there. This is one of the best cloud automations for your house. I've recommended to friends who have installed and become water savers. My parents have one installed... and I seriously recommend that you pick one up. If it’s too expensive for you... look for a warehouse deal, used, etc. These are great and you will recover your investment...