@a0128958 & @jbass, good afternoon, Emil here, head of support for Rachio. I’m sorry for any frustration either of you encountered connecting your Iros to WiFi. Our support team is dedicated to getting ALL users connected, and will bend over backwards to help. I appreciate both of you reaching out and working with us. Thank you for taking the time and effort to do so.
My ask to both of you is to test out the Iro for the next month and see if it’s features outweigh the cons of installation. If you’re not happy with it, we will stand behind our product and buy it back. I’d love to know your favorite feature after having a chance to play with it, as well as anything you think we could improve (blinkup noted ;)).
Lastly, I have two questions for anyone reading this:
What interested you in replacing your old controller with an Iro?
I’m not sure if this was in response to my post or not, I’m still trying to figure out the board. I don’t think my post was at all badmouthing. If I didn’t think this was a product worth my time I would have simply given up, returned it to the store and moved on with my life. Companies need honest feedback from real customers, without it they stagnate and die. A good company and CEO will learn from and make use of that feedback, and is smart enough to know when to ignore sour grapes.
Were I CEO I would be looking for ways to make the setup, configuration and operation of my product as painless as possible for my customer. It reduces my support costs and increases positive word of mouth, the most effective advertising my company could have. My bottom line gets better as a result. My toughest critics offer me the opportunity for the most growth, and growth is seldom painless. My competitors will not hesitate to make hay from my troubles, so I better figure out how I’m going to stop that happening.
I’m a very tech savvy customer and I’m not afraid to dive in as deep as I need to to get things done. I have friends and relatives that are not such good techies, and based solely on my experience I would not be able to give an unreserved endorsement of this controller. I would tell them that they need to have an Apple device of some sort handy if they want to get going quickly, and that my support person was tenacious in trying to solve my problem. I’m up and mostly working after spending 5 hours to get there. That is a long time to set up a consumer device that turns water on and off, no matter how smart it is. Rachio made some design choices that caused me some trouble, they should want to know about it. It does not mean I think it’s a bad company, it means I care enough to give them my time to help improve.
If technology never broke I would not have a job. I make my living deploying and fixing tech. I totally get that stuff breaks, that does not mean that I stop looking for ways to make it easier, more stable and a better experience for my end users.
All that said I very much appreciate the support staff I worked with and the companies willingness to ship an iPhone to get this set up. Not all companies will do that, and it’s a credit to Rachio. They obviously want my business and are willing to work to keep it. That is why I’m willing to provide constructive feedback and suggestions. I want them to be the best they can be.
@emil,
I never heard of a smart controller until this arrived yesterday as a gift. I was interested because I had it in my hands, I like tech tools, and if it can help me save water, esp. in a severe drought then I’m in. I despise paying for utilities period, so anything that can help me cut that bill is welcome.
I have not had enough exposure to the controller to know if I would buy one, but I fully intend to let it run now that it’s up, I spent too much time getting it running to walk away now!
I don’t know anything about blinkup technology, but after watching the Samsung and iPad side by side I wonder if it’s possible to slow the blink rate to allow more devices to work. It surely looked to me like the response of the LCD was much faster on the iPad.
bought a new house with an irrigation system, had a Rain Dial RD-900 R controller that was god awful to program. being a techie, started poking around for a wifi connected system, to go with my wifi security cameras and thermostats i had installed.
went to amazon (where i always go) and started researching. rachio had the most interesting concept, with server based control, weather station monitoring, and both web and mobile management.
i was up and running in 20 minutes, and couldn’t be happier.
@jbass, we completely agree and do appreciate your honest feedback. No hard feelings here
Also a great point. I believe this is a key reason the Kindle has been so successful. Just turn it on and go!
Interesting observation. I’ll do some internal testing to see if we can isolate the setting on the Samsung that might be “slowing down” it’s screen’s refresh rate.
@rmswenson747, awesome! This is the experiencing we except for all of our users. However, on occasion a hiccup occurs with some phones and/or routers.
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