Ordered a Rachio 3 controller in June 2024. (Serial # AC4965291-build date APR 2024). Performed the rest of watering season well. Put unit into hibernation mode, and unplugged through the winter. Plugged the unit back in for spring, and it would not power up. Contacted support, who walked through troubleshooting, and agreed to replace the unit. Received the 2nd unit (Serial # AC3966846-build date APR 2022), and it would not complete the 4th stage of setup. Contacted Support again, who verified on their side that something in the unit prevented final pairing, and agreed to send a 3rd unit. Received 3rd unit (Serial # AC7582073-build date July 2021. 3rd unit would not power on, no lights at all. Contacted support again for a 4th unit. A month after my initial problem and I receive a working unit (Serial # AC0215218-Build date June 2020). I now have a functioning 5 YEAR OLD controller, that has a year of warranty left. The fact they ship out controllers that are obviously reconditioned as well as my last received “working” unit was obviously in service previously, and they pace at which Rachio is sending units tells me they know they have the problem, and rather than replace with new “revised” units, are just sending out more reconditioned units to satisfy their commitment. I suspect they have a bad supplier of either power supplies or controller hardware, and may be experiencing issues with importing new, working units. At every troubleshooting, most of the power supplies were outputting much more than the 24VAC labeled. Two of the supplies were outputting 32VAC and 33VAC respectively. I can only suspect that I’ll continue getting replacements until my 2 year warranty is up, and I’ll then be faced with adopting another platform. Its a shame, because I feel Rachio’s intelligence is good, just very poor hardware, and no reassurance from Rachio that they’ve addressed the problem. Every follow up email addressed the Customer Service overseas chat, but not much for feedback of the product itself. To be fair, the customer service is mostly good, with speed to respond, and ship out new devices. Only once did they tell me to wait, (just over a week) for shipment notification, which was very frustrating, as I could Amazon order for next day delivery. I had to wait over a week, for my 4 year old reconditioned hardware.
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Similar experience here. I just installed the 3rd controller this morning - initial purchase kept disconnecting from Wi-Fi, replacement unit locked up and had to be power-cycled, now keeping my fingers crossed that this unit will work properly. I don’t have high hopes because Rachio is obviously recycling units that didn’t work well in the field but then passed some hopelessly inadequate QA test at the repair/refurb center.
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