The Rachio Smart sprinkler adds intelligence to the standard sprinkler controller. Not only can you control your sprinklers from your phone or a website but the controller checks the local weather and will not water when it rains saving you money and saving the environment. It comes in a 8 zone or 16 zone model and can be installed outside with an optional enclosure.
I purchased my Rachio last summer but only recently have I started to use it. My Rachio was one of the first smart products that I purchased for my home. I purchased in anticipation of using it on my lawn that I was planning to have installed but because of some higher priority projects around the house the lawn install had to wait. I was hoping to have my lawn installed this past Spring but my landscaper talked my into waiting into fall as he had better luck with lawn installations in the fall in New England. So after tearing up what was left of my old lawn, spreading 100 or so yards of loam and laying down the hydro seed I was ready to fire up the Rachio.
I purchased my Rachio last summer but only recently have I started to use it. My Rachio was one of the first smart products that I purchased for my home. I purchased in anticipation of using it on my lawn that I was planning to have installed but because of some higher priority projects around the house the lawn install had to wait. I was hoping to have my lawn installed this past Spring but my landscaper talked my into waiting into fall as he had better luck with lawn installations in the fall in New England. So after tearing up what was left of my old lawn, spreading 100 or so yards of loam and laying down the hydro seed I was ready to fire up the Rachio.
I set up the Rachio when it was installed over a year ago and I expect I will continue to tweak the settings as I go along to get the best results for my lawn. The web and mobile app are impressive the amount of options, settings and customizations available are what make Rachio the top smart sprinkler on the market. You can set pictures of each of your zones, there are estimates of how much water you used and saves and you get a complete watering history, that can be easily changes from your phone or the site. Additionally, it can be integrated with other smart products like Alexa and Nest Protect Smoke detectors. Pretty cool to be able to tell Alexa to water zone 3 for 10 minutes.
With a new lawn my landscaper suggested I water my lawn a few times a day as o not let the soil get dry. I was hoping to find a new lawn setting that would take care of this for me but it seems this functionality does not exist in the app. So I set up 3 fixed schedules for the zones needing to be watered. This seems to be working fine although I think having multiple schedules watering the same zones in the same day messes with the climate algorithms. It was raining this morning so the Rachio skipped my morning watering. But at noon I noticed my sprinklers were on. Even though the ground was still wet, so I had to manually stop and set a rain delay so it would not water for the rest of the day. I may post something on the Rachio community forum to see if there is something I am missing but that is my only complaint so far.
I look forward to using this in the spring as a set it and forget it app. Overall I am very impressed with the functionality and features of the Rachio controller. It to me is the ultimate smart product, it is easy to use, saves you money and is good for the environment.
 |
| Zone Settings |
With a new lawn my landscaper suggested I water my lawn a few times a day as o not let the soil get dry. I was hoping to find a new lawn setting that would take care of this for me but it seems this functionality does not exist in the app. So I set up 3 fixed schedules for the zones needing to be watered. This seems to be working fine although I think having multiple schedules watering the same zones in the same day messes with the climate algorithms. It was raining this morning so the Rachio skipped my morning watering. But at noon I noticed my sprinklers were on. Even though the ground was still wet, so I had to manually stop and set a rain delay so it would not water for the rest of the day. I may post something on the Rachio community forum to see if there is something I am missing but that is my only complaint so far.
 |
| Schedule Settings |
I look forward to using this in the spring as a set it and forget it app. Overall I am very impressed with the functionality and features of the Rachio controller. It to me is the ultimate smart product, it is easy to use, saves you money and is good for the environment.
No comments:
Post a Comment