My Rachio 3 will every day go completely off-line and unresponsive. There are NO lights visible on the front and the controller can only be recovered by power cycling.
I am convinced this is a bug in the underlying wifi networking system of the controller - which I guess it is some version of embedded Linux. I have a NetGear mesh ORBI network, and to resolve the original problem I had years ago I gave the Rachio a fixed DHCP IP. This worked for about 2-3 years. The controller would very rarely go offline.
However, I recently I moved one of the ORBI satellites to a new location much closer to the Rachio. Almost immediately the controller started “crashing” every day. The Wi-Fi signal is pretty strong ( 200mbps at the controller). However, the controller is now equidistant from two satellites. I think the wi-fi subsystem has some issue. I have 30 other wifi devices both on 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz that never give any problems. The Wifi Network is solid. I have now dedicated a “smart switch” to power cycle the controller every day before any watering so I can at least have it functioning reliably.
loopless, that is solid view of this problem. I agree it is a subsystem that is the issue here. I have used the auto reboot with other devices before, with success.
Good on Ya…
The only long term solution I found was to buy a cheap “smart switch” and cycle the power of the controller every day using , in my case, a HomeKit “automation” that turns it off at 3 am and back on at 3:05.
Tbh this solution is not only extremely ugly, but I also think it will not work for us. Our unit seems to get disconnected not once a day, but very shortly after I reconnect it. There was not a single time I fired up the app and it showed as connected. Not a single time. Eg I connected it again this morning (like always, it took two reboot cycles), just a couple of hours ago, and it’s already not connected now. Just so so frustrating
There is a difference between having connection problems, and the device itself shutting down or being unresponsive. In my case, the device had no lights on at all and appeared to have crashed.
My solution, whether you think it is ugly or not, was the only work around for that situation.
When you can’t connect to your device, you should check whether it is showing the full three bars of light on the front or whether some of them are flashing, indicating it is trying to reconnect to Wi-Fi.
Yeah, lights are flashing (first two) and to the app it appears offline. The WiFi itself is strong and stable. But the stupid device stays disconnected until I reset the WiFi button on it and go through the setup process again (usually two cycles as the first one fails). Really starting to hate this device…
@shaimo - probably a networking issue. Can you provide insight into the network setup? Is a mesh network involved? Is the SSID broadcast on only 2.4 GHz or is the same SSID use for both 5 and 2.4 GHz.
I have an AT&T router that covers really well the entire house, but the Rachio unit seems to be in a place where the connection is a bit sketchy. So I added a TP range extender dedicated to cover that area. It seems to be very strong and very stable when I connect to it with my iPhone at the same location where the Rachio is. Not sure if it’s 2.4 or 5 Ghz. What is the Rachio using?
Shaimo, the Rachio only uses the 2.4 GHz band. Is the same network name (SSID) being used for the range extender or did you use a different network name? I might suggest using only the 2.4 GHz band and a different network name on the TP range extender to see if that helps.
No luck. I disabled the 5ghz on the extender side. My iPhone still connects with no issue and shows a very strong and stable WiFi. Rachio is now not connected at all. I get an error when I try to connect it to that same ext ssid. Emailed customer support…
Hmm, I now disabled the 2.4ghz and enabled only the 5ghz and it did connect. So it’s definitely not using 2.4ghz only. Now i need to hope it stays connected…
