I replaced a Cyber Rain Pro that never worked right for me with a 16 Zone Rachio. Setup was not difficult but there were some minor issues:
Connecting wires was not obvious to me, and I have a reasonable amount of experience with electrical systems and home control. Might be useful to just add one line to the manuals to depress the notched tab on top and insert the wire.
Wire run into the device is awkward and not big enough really for 16 zones to make it easy. It was very tight and difficult to run all cables in with Rachio attached to wall. I had to remove it and run wires in and then re-attach. I would change this design to make this easier.
Blink Setup with Galaxy S6 failed multiple times, and only after I went online into the FAQ did I see the note that iOS works better for a number of technical reasons and Android could have issues. Would have helped to have this info again in the setup instructions, would have saved me 15 - 20 minutes of keeping trying my S6 to no avail. Worked on 1 try with iPad.
Zone Setup - This is done really well and was a breeze.
Watering Schedule - Not intuitive again for 16 zones. Needed to give some thought to how to split my zones and then manually set up the watering based on that split, otherwise I would be watering for 12 hours a day 3 days a week. Would be great to add better intelligence to system with more than 8 zones (even 8 zones might be better split up rather than all in one day as well).
Overall easier and better designed than Cyber Rain system, wish this was available a couple of years ago before I bought the Cyber Rain.
Tried to PM you with some ideas on larger multi-zone systems but for the life of me on this platform I cannot figure out how to PM someone. It is cool you have a unique Community platform, but the downside is with a unique platform sometimes finding features is not that easy. It might also be that as I am new to the Board I might not have privileges to PM yet as well, to be honest not sure.
Agreed mine says that too, but I took it to mean that once wires are installed, to release them you push down on the terminal with a small screwdriver. I actually thought that they specifically wrote it this way because installing the wires was done differently possibly by just pushing into the terminal slot, like a US Light Switch for example, and people may not know how to release them once installed.
Hi @gdstark and @Chimpware, great points, we’re working on improving our installation instructions. We know they could be better. Just curious, which install guide did you have? Perhaps you could post a photo? Did either of you stumble across our installation videos?
I had a tri-fold quick installation guide that looked lie a pamphlet, can take a picture if you need it to identify.
I did not find the installation videos prior to installation, and would have helped with tip to run wires into the unit prior to installation on the wall, but the video does not show how to actually install the wires by depressing the slotted tab / button.
And no, I did not find the videos. I think they’re well done, except that they still omit how to push the wires in. Why not link to them from your printed guide? Also, agree with Chimpware that the wire instruction was how you release them.
My installation experience was the opposite. I had no issues with the wire installation. My only issue was I was on the wrong WiFI band. I needed to be on 2.4ghz instead of the 5g band.
