Rachio 3 Not Responding in Homekit (Again)

Er, it has been over two years. Our definitions of “in a hurry” are widely divergent.

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That’s British sarcasm - they’ve not been incentivized to fix anything even slowly, let alone in a hurry.

Instead of calling the toilet “the John”, I call it “the Jim”…
That way it sounds a lot better when I tell people I go to “the Jim” first thing every morning…

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Hi

I’m sorry to jump into this particular thread real late – and no I didn’t read all 1386 replies to this thread, so please tell me if what I’m saying or asking has been asked/solved/not solved.

I purchased Rachio in 2019 and yes I was amazed the Homekit integration was half-baked and broken. I believe I spoke to somebody in customer support back then and they confirmed HomeKit wasn’t really working and for me to wait – but they said it was going to “be awhile”. I kind of gave up on the entire idea and am kind of amazed its now Sept 2021 and the issue still isn’t exactly solved. I guess the suggestion “It’s going to be awhile” is still true.

I recently for a different project setup Home Assistant within an xcp-ng hypervisor as a VM for a different camera setup. I’m still really new to working with this Home Automation software so I can’t give firm recommendations or setup advice. Because it’s a Home Automation program, if offers various plugins and tries to seemlessly recognize other home automation devices on the LAN. On my LAN – among others I have an Apple TV stand-alone box and a Rachio – both devices were identified right away and I was able to add them within Home Assistant. Home Assistant also provided an option to install a HomeKit wireless bridge integration.

The setup looks like below:

Once I set this up and registered with homekit, I found all the rachio zones and schedules to show up within Apple Home Kit

Honestly I’m not sure the status of Rachio and Homekit - it appears they are really working on it (maybe). I was really surprised however that a free program such as Home Assistant was able to offer this level of functionality and discovery. I’m just passing this information along to users requiring homekit integration at current time. HomeKit can be installed as a VM, or stand-alone program, or docker image. I’m aware some users may not have the home network to set something up like this, however just figured I’d pass it on as a way for those users familiar with setting up other projects.

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Broke down and configured my Rachio with Homebridge. Works perfectly. Should have just done this a long time ago.

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2 weeks now without a status update… :sleeping:

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I will likely regret this but “iro3-firmware-hk-15-3" is working for me. It was bumpy ride to get it connected to the home app but once I did it’s been online for a week with no issues. I do have a notification in the Home app of a firmware update but it online.

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WTF does that even mean? They have a Rachio 4 in testing they are sending to apple? What apple to the wifi chip maker? Was the test units sent 2 weeks ago? Man, this is just ridiculous…
Also find it strange they don’t post updates anymore unless someone calls them out on it. Truly obvious they don’t care about fixing this. :-1:

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I think you made the right move. I posted about this recently myself and it has been working great ever since. Meanwhile, Rachio toddles along on the testing.

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Just turned off most of my watering for the season…fall is finally arriving and no fix

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I’m in south Florida
Summer, Winter, Fall, and Spring it’s all the same here. lol

I have not had to re-add it back in since turning off IP6 but it is flaky and constantly goes off-line and back online. Really annoying when I’m in my yard working on stuff and I have to wait until the controller feels like going back online again as I’m standing there getting soaking wet by the sprinklers.

Someone please tell me todays official update is a joke?

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Comical. They send the units via Pony Express? This is becoming an ongoing joke this whole beta/HomeKit update :woozy_face:
They should be embarrassed for these posts. Do they think their customer base is that dumb?

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Screen Shot 2021-09-26 at 12.59.44 PM
Actual photo of the controller in mid shipment going to Apple.

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[spoiler]We shipped it to Apple./spoiler]

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I am finding that I have iro3-firmware-hk-15-3, too now. Is that a beta?

Be that as it may, everything HomeKit is now working the way it’s supposed to. With the second beta I had received, I was unable to add the controller to HomeKit. With this firmware version it worked.

Yes, that’s the same one I am on. It worked great for about 10 days then dropped off and never came back.

yes, same FW that has been floating around the beta world for a few months now…

I’ve joined the beta in hopes to help test! My HomeKit hasn’t worked in over a year. I work in IT and would love to help test the beta firmware.

Let me know.

“Apple is testing our debug units”
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