I bought the Rachio 2 when it was released. I’ve been following Rachio’s development for a little while and finally bit the bullet when the 8 zone came out. First off I’ll say that your interaction with customers is top notch. It really means a lot that you take into account our feedback. Which brings me to two things:
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The issues surrounding Rachio access when an Internet connection is absent is disappointing. Looking at other posts, most people incorrectly refer to the problem being when wifi is down. So when my cable for Internet was recently severed while doing some digging, I thought it would still run because my wifi was still broadcasting. I guess all the commands are running server side, which I understand the advantages of that, but the frustration of not being able to simply communicate basic commands over wifi (no internet connection) seem unnecessary. In addition, I thought my saving grace would be the manual controls, but now I see those are really only good for basic diagnostics due to the 3 minute run time. No option for inputting time (multiple button presses equal additional minutes?) nor selecting multiple zones to run.
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I was kind of surprised that our rachio account login didn’t transfer to the message board. Small thing, but a little wacky.
Overall I think y’all are making great progress. I haven’t really been able to tweak the settings enough to let it do its thing without input, but I hope to get there eventually.
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It seems Franz mentioned in the Gen 2 controllers there is an embedded web server, and they eventually hope to open this up for user access. Would this solve the problem?
Solve it? Yes. Is that the best way to implement it? I don’t think so. I don’t know why it would be that hard to allow a phone/tablet connected to the wifi network Rachio is on to still operate it at some capacity (minus some features that require an Internet connection ).
It’s equivalent to buying a smart thermostat that if you lose Internet, all you can do is change the temp 1 degree up or down from the unit.
The big selling point is the ease of access through a mobile device (in addition to some other features)
Actually, an embedded web server in the Iro could be a very flexible and powerful thing. A properly done mobile website, run by the Iro itself could look very much like a native iOS or Android app. They’re never quite as slick, but it would be more than sufficient. I think that would be a great local access option.
Of course, most of the smarts of the Rachio are in the cloud, so it would be a pretty basic set of local controls.
I’ll also note that the Iro will still “run” when your Internet connection is down (or just the Wi-Fi). I think you know this, and you just meant that you can’t control it when the Internet is down, but just in case (and for others stumbling onto this topic later):
http://support.rachio.com/article/169-iro-connectivity-concerns
And, for completeness, there are a couple of ways to run the controller without Internet at all:
http://support.rachio.com/article/475-buttons-gen-2
http://support.rachio.com/article/476-limited-schedules
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Yes. Basic controls would be nice to have access to on a $200 plastic box that controls your irrigation. Here’s my current situation. I had my lawn aerated Monday and the Internet was cut. The ISP can’t get out to fix it until the weekend. Forecasts have changed and we aren’t getting rain anytime soon. Therefore the Rachio is going off bad information during a time I really need to lay some water down on the lawn. Yes, you are correct. I can use the buttons. I can stay outside for hours cycling through my zones, 3 minutes at a time. Come on.
I don’t quite understand why I can’t just manually water as normal or have the hard buttons allow for more commands via long pushes or something.
So… Those are my suggestions.
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I’m totally with you. The reliance on Rachio’s servers and the lack of local control is the only reservation I had when choosing Rachio. I hope they do add a local control option, preferably that obeys a connected rain sensor, too, so there are at least some weather smarts left.
As to your immediate situation, do you have the option to use a cell phone as a wifi hotspot for a few minutes to let our Iro pull the latest data from the cloud?
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Someone needs to learn how to burry cable/
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