I waited and I waited for HomeKit compatibility… When it was available I purchased the Rachio 3… Now, I am finding that in my Home app the Rachio is not available with “No Response”… I have cleared this problem twice now and the only way that I can figure out how to do it is to return the controller to factory and set it back up remembering NOT to remove the controller from the app (so as not to lose everything). This method seems to work but only temporarily.
Using the Rachio from the Home app is pretty rudimentary and frankly useless except for manual watering which sort of defeats the point of the smart controller. This still doesn’t change the fact that it’s not working inside HomeKit as it should and as promised…
I am just very curious as to why you feel this way. I am not a HomeKit user myself, and I’ve been wondering what people want to do with it since the Rachio is so automatic on it’s own. I’ve got mine set up with a Flex Daily schedule and it just runs with little monitoring (which is VERY nice since I travel a lot).
The only thing I have come up (without really knowing HomeKit) is that maybe you’d want to do a pause using HomeKit instead of using the Rachio native app.
I think you may have miss-understood me. I agree with you 100%. Using the homekit app / with Siri really only gives you the ability to say “Hey Siri water my grass”… You don’t have to do that with Rachio3, daily flex and weather intelligence…
However, it’s a advertised feature that should work… Like myself. Many people waited for Homekit integration before buying a Rachio3. Most that did buy a Rachio 3 have since found out that Homekit integration is “Not All That”
Same issue… It never was an issue with iOS 12.1, then it started when upgrading everything to iOS 12.2.
I have friends with a Rachio where it’s not an issue so have been trying to figure out what might be unique in my situation. After seeing your screenshot, I wonder if it’s because we have multiple HomeKit hubs (I see you have a HomePod and an Apple TV). I have a HomePod and Apple TV x2. As a test I just went through the annoyance of resetting it (once again) and adding it to HomeKit and then I just disabled both Apple TVs as far as being used as a hub. Wondering if it’s something going on when one hub hands off to the other and then it gets confused about what happened to the hub.
Anyway, just a theory… might try using just your HomePod as the hub (can’t easily disable the HomePod as a hub, but it’s a setting on Apple TV). Just curious that it’s also happening to you and we both have multiple hubs and all my friends that it works fine with have a single HomeKit hub.
We received a new HomeKit firmware version from our WiFi vendor that could help with a lot of these issues. Will take some time to test and validate. We will inform everyone when it will be released.
I too am seeing intermittent disconnects. The only way to get things working again with HomeKit is a Powercycle. The Rachio App and Web connection work fine and are connected with no problems to the controller.
I am fairly convinced that this may be a channel issue 2.4 vs 5ghz… If we wait for a update from Rachio to work through Apple eco-system, I am confident it will all come out in the wash…
Homekit connection has failed recently. Had no problems until a couple of weeks ago. Removed controller and reconfigured, but “No Response” appears on Home app within a few minutes of adding Gen3 controller as accessory.
In case there are any breakthroughs. It’s annoying because on top of it all my home app reports it as an unresponsive devices and it appears to count each zone as a device.
My Rachio 3 has also lost its HomeKit connection. I removed it when it stayed on No Response. Tried adding back and I cannot. Not going to factory reset the controller either - not sure if everything saves and I am not looking forward to having to set everything back up again; zones, schedule, etc. Would be nice to have that functionality again for when we want a specific zone to run. Hopefully an update is issued. Following…
Many people purchased a Rachio 3 because of the promise of HomeKit compatibility. I am beginning to feel mislead by Rachio. This has taken far too long for Rachio to fix. For me, this really tarnishes the confidence I have in Rachio moving forward.
Apple has delivered a new SDK that is very different than the one our vendor implemented themselves. We are integrating it into our firmware and doing regression/validation testing which is very time consuming. As soon as this has been completed we will start to roll the new firmware out.
HomeKit has a non-response issue with numerous devices. The main thing I have found that causes this that when I have my Wifi router configured for both 2.4 and 5 ghz enabled my devices will jump from one freq to another and this makes HomeKit get non-responsive issues. I have disabled the 5 GHz and forces everything to use the remaining 2.4GHz and it cleared up this issue. Also it appears that the base HomeKit controller can be passed between different Apple devices, Apple TVs, iPads, etc… If it moves to a new device and that device cannot see the device you get non-responsive.
A key point to my previous post is that if your using your iPhone to control through HomeKit and you get non-responsive I believe this means that the current HomeKit controller cannot communicate with the device not your iPhone.
You are exactly right. With my Synology router I can assign any connected device to the 2.4 or 5 network. If I assign the Rachio controller to the 2.4 network ONLY, it works and never drops. If I let the router work “smart” like it is designed to the Rachio drops out INSTEAD of working on either network as it is supposed to - and as advertised.
HomeKit is a work in progress and I agree these technologies are new and I have everything Apple eco system and I do not currently own 3rd generation but I do have several other home devices and it is common when APPLE’S update software unfortunately changes sometime occur and it takes awhile for kinks to work themselves out. Further releases of apple’s software will fix disconnect issues just have to be patient. I also found hardwiring larger desktop computers using Ethernet will help with connection issues to HomeKit.
Just checking in to see if this has been resolved. I noticed an iOS app update and tried to add the Rachio back to HomeKit and it was successful but went into “no response” as soon as I tapped done.
I have the same Homekit no response issue. It worked fine when I bought it last November. Then it stopped working with Homekit (no response) without warning. Reinstalling doesn’t help. It’s frustrating because I chose this product due to Homekit compatibility.
It works great on its own automated, and the Homekit feature is pretty limited, but I like it and want it to work as advertised.
Please help. Your customer support team was initially responsive and then disappeared after a few replies. No one has reached out since.
Hey @da_duggal (and others) - sorry for the silence on the support team’s end. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t have much to update at this point. I’m pinging for updates weekly but we’re still waiting on some third party updates before we can make adjustments on our end. this is the best place to stay posted, though - as soon as I have more information this is the first place I’ll come!
Hey @laura.bauman - any news on the ETA for a solution? My R3 became unresponsive in Homekit a few weeks ago. Not having read this thread, I deleted the accessory through my Homekit app and have since been unable to add it back as the app can’t find it. This has obviously been an issue now for over 3 months and I would appreciate being enlightened as to why its taking so long to be resolved. Thank you.
this is the best place to stay posted, though - as soon as I have more information this is the first place I’ll come!