Thanks for the heads up, should be cosmetic but we’ve noticed an increase in reconnects with the cloud broker so this is good timing.
We are meeting with the Amazon team today to discuss what we are seeing.
Thanks again for the information, don’t believe there is any need for concern, I’ll relay what we find 
I’ve received dozens (perhaps hundreds) of these “cosmetic” notifications in the past 24 hours:
Is this a server-side problem, or something specific to my Iro?
Those events are normal and nothing you need to worry about. The device will sometimes reconnect to our cloud broker, but won’t affect performance, connection, etc. We will be filtering out more of that noise so your event history doesn’t get loaded up with them.
I own a number of “smart” devices (SmartThings, IP cameras, ISY, MyQ, Insteon, August), some that were even Kickstarter projects - but if I’m honest with myself (and your team), Iro is the least polished of them all. The gen 1 hardware felt amazingly ‘cheap’, seemed to have an inadequate network stack, the flash-up gimmick proved to be just that, and the product lifecycle was just 1 year. For a sprinkler controller that competes with products that last as long as houses - I’d call that less than success.
I like the promise of the product offering, but when smart devices do dumb things - they can actually be more hassle than their non-smart equivalents. For example, if I were to have reinstalled my old dumb sprinkler controller this weekend I wouldn’t be getting hundreds of spam alerts, posting messages on forums, or rebuilding my schedule for the 3rd time to take advantage of the latest shiny as-needed dart toss. Maybe it will be great, and for your sake I hope it is.
Hardware is hard, web services are hard, products in general are tough. But you’ve also made promises to your clients in exchange for actual money. These things are shipping under the banner of “production” ready, not beta or preview (aside from Flex, which was labeled beta but still part of the marketing pitch). Maybe you need to consider soaking releases with a pool of customers who are willing to exchange their time and stability for access to early features?
I’m going to give Iro one more release cycle to get “right”, and if things don’t go well I’ll pitch it. I am rooting for you, but I also value my time and can only fuss with this thing so much. Your team thinks about Iro all day, but your customers buy the Iro to do exactly the opposite.
(while I wrote this post I received 40+ push notifications)
This Post displays cognitive dissonance. You admit that things are hard then criticize for bugs.
Outside of excessive push notifications, which could be caused by things outside of rachio’s control (only time will tell), things have been pretty tight. flex schedule was a work of art/science, in no way could a home owner buy that level of sophistication for $250 flat.
lets also not pretend some big ass names in iot devices, some owned by big ass search engines, have not misbehaved in far more negligent ways that directly hit ppl in the wallet, hard.
I feel your pain I do, but they have lived up to the promise printed on the box. Maybe not Callahan brake pads promise yet, but it’s not a garrunteed piece of shit either. I think there are a number of ppl running the rachio on ubiquiti, I know I am…without problem
i know I’m a fan boy, I get it, but I think you have not framed your argument properly from the perspective of the world of iot.
Fun trivia fact. We just installed Ubiquiti Unifi AC PRO Wireless Access Points powered by a 8 port Ubiquiti Tough Switch PRO and we have about 30 controllers running on a dual band network. Ubiquiti seems to be some good stuff
Yeah, overall I am very happy with their equipment. I only had the access points before, but recently upgraded my network with a 24-port POE switch and a UniFi Security Gateway. .
I just had my internet speed upgraded and now when I try to reconnect to my wifi it doesn’t recognize it as an option. It is 5g. If I turn my work phone hot spot on, it does recognize this. Any thoughts?
Rachio will only work on a 2.4gHz channel. Suggestion, turn off your 5g connection on your router and reattempt pairing. Once paired, re-enable your 5g connection.
Put your 2.4 band on another sid.
In this day and age it is sad that this is a possible requirement.
Maybe, but you can pass through more walls at 2.4, and the controller doesn’t have a large data plane, I actually like the 2.4 band.
Allow me to expand on my comment. I completely agree 2.4Ghz makes sense for the type of device it is. The thing I find odd is that a consumer is expected to temporarily disable their 5Ghz band if their SSID broadcasts on both ranges. That’s what I’d like to see fixed.
Well, I think that is a beginner level piece of advice. Their are bugs in numerous chipsets that jumped the gun on 5 gz before the spec was ratified so operating the same Sid in both bands becomes problematic. The real solution is to use 2 sids, 1 for each band.
What part? Setting up two networks is, IMHO, always been a lousy workaround for suboptimal gear. Rachio is literally the only device out of dozens in our home with any such requirement to ‘hide’ the 5Ghz band during setup. All others seamlessly transition across 2.4 and 5 on the same SSID and vice versa as well as roam across all of our UniFi APs.
Disabling the 5gz band. It’s low hanging fruit.
Gotcha. I mistakenly thought you meant my suggestion to keep a single SSID across both radio spectrums was faulty or abnormal.
But to be clear, I would put each band on a discreet Sid, you will avoid potential issues going forward. Especially with throughput downgrades. the minute a b/g client connects to a n network, your throughput is downgraded for all unless you are using a router that is enterprise ready.
so I use 1 router for b/g/n clients with b/g on 1 sid and 1 on n, I have another router for ac that has very specific bandsteering criteria to prevent other adverse effects but still allows n clients if they can be steered correctly.
Wireless networking is tricky.
Couldn’t agree more. This stuff is my weak point- when our team writes explanations on networking to train our team, they test it out on me to see if it’s easy enough to understand. “Networking for Dummies” is titled “Networking for McKynzee” here at Rachio.
