Newbie here, controller being installed this week

Greetings, as the subject says, I’m new to the community and to Rachio products in general. New irrigation system being finalized this week and 16-zone Rachio 3 controller installed. The irrigation contractor has indicated that they’re familiar with Rachio controllers but my level of confidence isn’t high that they’ve actually installed this particular one before nor used the App for setup, etc. Will they be able to set things up initially without even using the App? i.e. are there manual controls anywhere on the controller itself? Thanks.

You will need the app to configure the controller (activation, zone setup), but yes they should be able to run zones manually on the controller after it is setup.

Couple things to note:

Some installers will put the controller in under their account and then transfer ownership back to the customer.

https://support.rachio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007515493-How-to-use-Transfer-Ownership-to-share-my-controller-with-someone-else-

You might want to create a guest network to initially connect the controller to if you are uncomfortable sharing your WiFi password. After install you can move the controller back to your main WiFi network or leave it on the guest network.

Hope this helps, welcome to the community, and hope the install goes great!

:cheers:

1 Like

Franz, thanks for the information, appreciate it. Since I’ve already installed (but not yet used) the Rachio app on my iPad and I’ll be home during the install, I’ll likely work with them using my iPad, account and network credentials, thus no need for ownership transfer. Thanks again.

If you have the controller you can connect it to your account and WiFi without the installer actually there and then just have them do the wiring, etc. If they are bringing the controller then it should be a simple setup. Have a great week!

:cheers:

1 Like

Great idea. Yes I have the controller here at home still in the box. Tomorrow I’ll power it up and connect to my account from the kitchen table. Thanks for the suggestion. :wink:

1 Like