Future Rachio customer

Hello Rachio community. I’m new here to the community and figured I’d go ahead and sign up for this forum. I don’t yet have a Rachio Iro but I’ll be buying soon. Tomorrow I’ll take a look at my current controller (1997 Rainbird) and see what model I need.

So I’m a local weather buff with a weather station on Wunderground, CWOP, PWSweather etc. Station is a Davis Vantage Pro2+ running on Weather Display 10.32 R252 software. This is where my interest in the Rachio Iro begins.

Last week I got a touching email from a new Rachio Iro customer nearby who’s Rachio uses my station. His kind words almost brought tears to my eyes. Not every day you have someone email you expressing their gratitude for something you do. It made my day.

Accuracy in my weather station is something I’m a bit OCD about.

He also showed me a phone screenshot of my station shutting the system off after a good rain from Tropical Storm Bill last week. That’s what got me thinking about getting a Rachio Iro for my home.

After doing more research on the Rachio Iro I’m beginning to get hooked on the idea. I know we need a new irrigation controller. Rather than buy yet another simple Rainbird or Toro, I’ve got my sights set on getting a Rachio.

So I have some questions regarding the setup,

I’ve heard about issues with wire gauges on older systems that use thick wire. I’m not sure what our current system uses. Installed in 1997 so it’s old.

What wire gauge will the Rachio accept?

What’s the Internet setup like? Enter WEP code and it’s instantly online?

My station is a Pro2+. CWOP provides the wind, temperature, humidity, rain, and solar radiation data. Does Rachio calculate evapotranspiration?

Does the Rachio factor in the plants in a specific zone? Like in zone 1 tomatoes etc?

Does it factor in drought and watering restrictions from sources like the Palmer drought monitor?

Can’t wait to get the Rachio and set it up.

Thanks.

have no idea.

its pretty cool actually, you bring up the app on your phone, punch in the wifi details (please try to get off of wep for other technical reasons) and you hold your phone up to the photocell on the unit and it will blink in the most intense epileptic’s worse nightmare of data (called blink up) and configure the device…after a few moments it will be online. i found it very easy for a device that has not screen.

yes it does. will also delay watering if rain is forecasted for you area.

yes, to some degree. you do not indicate that a zone has tomatoes. you indicate that the zone has annual vegitation or cool season turf or warm season turf, higher level classifications like this not specific phenotypes.

not drought, water restrictions yes. you can set a schedule to run for specific days of the week, odd/even or long intervals of 1-29 days.

i have really enjoyed mine. i wish i had it 7 years ago. after 7 years on a hunter pro c, i dialed it in perfectly, the rachio out of the box and a few questions later had a setup that was very close to my hunter configuration. now with flexies (flex schedules) it is even easier as it will water in 4 days or 7 depended on the evap/evaptrans. also, my new pups keep eating my drip irrigation up non stop so it is nice to pull out the phone, fire up the zone, see the problem, stop zone, fix zone, test zone, all while sitting next to the damaged part. this used to be a lot of back and forth.

you will love it, and its better than the late comers to this market, like, https://lono.io/. a friend of mine jumped into their kick started a while back and he still has not gotten one yet…and its feature list pales in comparison to the rachio out with your cockio out.

i have many loves for this product.

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:sunrise_over_mountains:

I would email support@rachio.com to help with this. If you send them pictures of your old controller wiring, even better :wink:

Yes. Flex schedules (coming very soon) rely on this exclusively.

:beers:

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My house was built in 1999 and my guess is that the industry standard was the same then as it is for your system. My wiring works fine.

Evapotranspiration is a word you’ll see a lot if you get on the Rachio community much.

The setup is quite simple and FUN! The hardware can be easily done in 10 minutes. It’s not that complicated really. (I’m a little OCD, so I removed my old system, spackled, painted, installed, and even wall-mounted a new cord cover to give it a really finished look).

The software is about a 15 minute process and pretty straightforward as well. It walks you through one zone at a time, testing the zones in the process, while you give it about 5-6 pieces of information about each zone, and you’re basically done.

I think you’ll love it.

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Here’s a good video on the installation: https://youtu.be/ubjXJwjHwko

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I like it.

I’ve decided to wait until fall to get the Rachio Iro. By then everything goes dormant. I’ll have more financial stability. I’m also redoing the yard. The Rachio Iro will be part of the project.

:smile:

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you will not regret it