I still do not understand why people think Rachio needs HomeKit support, it runs at 4am on its own. The very few times per year I need to run it manually it really takes all of about 5 seconds to open the app and start watering manually. Sometimes it takes longer than that for Siri to first hear acknowledge I am attempting to get her to process a command, and then process what I said and make the command work. I use HomeKit for a lot of lighting controls and I have to admit I am still pretty new to it. How exactly would HomeKit make this device better?
My thinking exactly. The use cases are extreme and definitely not main stream. I have Smartthings for real “home automation” to automate things.
I also have google mini, alexa and home-kit (iPhones) but I don’t consider them home automation as I have to say something to them or take an action - they are just fun to have.
Our local water utility publishes a recommendation of the inches of water that is needed for the next week. I could automate fetching that number, divide by three and have it irrigate that amount of water over three waterings during the week. In the late spring I could subtract the amount of rain from the occasional rain shower and only water enough to supplement rainfall.
^that is what Rachio does by looking at the specific (not wide area generic) climate characteristics. Also, shrubs, tree and flowers will have different water needs than grass.
^that may not be the right way to water as it could lead to shallow roots, versus longer watering times with more days between.
To my knowledge, HomeKit does not fetch data (from your water utility) and does not have the ability to make decisions (divide by 3). What you are describing sounds closer to an IFTTT string, but I’m not even sure if that would work. HomeKit is basically for telling Siri what to do. Telling Siri to fetch data and divide by three is more complicated of a task than Siri can do at this time.
We were so bummed about this. Our engineering team worked for a year and a half to try and make it so HomeKit would be compatible on the Generation 1 and 2, but unfortunately, neither had enough memory to allow it to work.
We are offering a $30 discount for those who would like to upgrade to the Rachio 3! Just use the code HomeKit30 at checkout.
Why don’t you offer a trade in for the users who bought the version 2? As a matter of fact, many people bought the version 2 because rachio fed our thoughts that there would be HomeKit compatibility
A trade up program has been something we’ve considered and will continue to consider. Unfortunately, at this time we don’t currently have such a program. Although, we have seen a lot of users have great success selling their current controller to a friend or on Ebay!
This is disgusting. You people baited us saying gen 2 would support now its gen 3.
Time to sell this pos for a competitor. $30 off thats insulting after all the lies.
You should do a free trade up program for existing customers and suck up the loss.
You guys definitely made us believe gen 2 was HomeKit compatible…all that we were waiting was for Apple to release its API. Gonna be a lot of angry gen 2 owners.
It might be time to start the #breakyourrachio challenge on instagram after all these lies your company pushed out.
This is so insulting. A year and a half and no gen 2 support, time to fire those engineers.
You must have known for months you wouldn’t make gen 2 HomeKit compatible. Why not just be brutally clear early on? Maybe because there is new hardware you want sell?
Agreed-my understanding was that gen 2 would eventually support HomeKit. A trade in program seems like a fair solution given the communities understanding of future gen 2 support.
Yes, I am not happy with this. I bought the Rachio last year because I was told by your staff that Rachio is working to make homekit happen for the device I purchased. $30 off is a terrible compromise.
We’re sincerely so sorry for the disappointment here. When we launched the Generation 2 in 2016, we had every intention of having HomeKit compatibility on it when the irrigation profile was released, however we never made promises (or were able to make promises) that HomeKit would be available on the Generation 2.
Our engineering team tried incredibly hard for a very long time - up until very recently - to make HomeKit compatible on the Generation 2, but we found that no matter what we did, the Generation 2 did not have nearly enough memory to make the integration work.
We have not been able to publicly announce any HomeKit news until today, which is why we weren’t able to let everyone know ahead of time.
We’re bummed to hear that you’re not interested in the current promotion, but if you reconsider, the offer code is available until October 7.
We promise that we did everything we could to make the HomeKit and Generation 2 integration possible, but ultimately, it was physically impossible to complete, and we do apologize for that.
Stop posting this complete nonsense. A $30 discount is a joke.
What is it like 50 employees at rachio? And you people thought it was a good idea to alienate all the gen 2 owners?
This isnt a cellphone that we should be upgrading every year or so. This should be a one time purchase.
Your engineers are such horrible engineers that they cant even figure out a way to offer a memory upgrade (as you claim is needed) at the very least for gen 2 owners.
I am definitely posting my gen 2 on ebay as you horribly suggested and changing companies.
Lo