This morning, I noticed that my Rachio3 controller had lost connection to my wifi network / home app for the first time in a very long time… I remembered our internet going down the other night for a brief time…
I went to the controller in the garage and hit the wifi button and noticed the process was different this time. A pop-up on my phone said (something like) “Since iOS 14.2, you need to go to iPhone settings / wifi / and join the Rachio3 to your Wifi network”…
This is the same behavior as many of my other home apps and what I would normally expect. Everything worked perfectly after re-joining and it didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to do so!
Now if we can just get the controller to re-join automatically like other devices…
It looks like things are moving in a good direction
Before doing that, did you try a simple reboot (remove power, wait a few seconds, restore power)? Unless the internal Wi-Fi settings got corrupted or lost, I would expect the controller to reconnect without reconfiguring anything.
I don’t think you read what I typed very closely. I’m not having a problem. I simply stated that after a long long time my controller lost connection because of an Internet outage. I hit the Wi-Fi connect button and everything happened exactly as it should and unlike it has been happening. I haven’t had Raccio problems in over a year but was the original poster of this thread.
IMO, it is not disputed that in recovering from temporary connectivity or power issues, Rachio performs worse than most other IoT devices. Rachio needs to fix that.
But there is a serious question here: Does the controller lose (or intentionally erase) its stored SSID and password, or is it just in a state where it can’t associate, authenticate or obtain an IP address from the access point?
If the latter, a simple reboot will get it back online. You don’t have use the mobile app and deal with different procedures that depend on firmware version and phone platform and OS version. A system that is unattended for long periods could be equipped with a Wi-Fi controlled socket as a workaround. You could even have a script to automate that.
But if it’s the former, that’s a much more serious deficiency. It would be a real challenge to recover without physical access to the device. In spite of dozens of threads whining about problems reconnecting to Wi-Fi, I haven’t seen a single credible post that answers the important question of whether the controller loses its settings or not. Since you are quite knowledgeable about Apple stuff, I was hoping that you could provide an answer.
I suppose i could have chosen to reboot the controller… If I had, I think it would have reconnected just fine. The point I was trying to make is that the process has changed when it comes to adding the controller to your Wi-Fi network.
To be honest I don’t use the app or homekit very much since this irrigation controller is so fantastic at watering my grass all by itself.
!it’s been two years now for a promised fix. How much longer do we have to wait?
If I didn’t care about it working with HomeKit I could have saved a bunch of money and bought something else.
I use Siri with my watch to turn my sprinklers on and off when I’m in my yard so HomeKit is important for me, plus I paid for it.
It’s actually gotten worse as now the app no longer works for adding it back in and now we have to first open the app and then go to the phone settings to reconnect and then go back to the app to finish adding it back in.
We have a lot of storms that knock out the power here for a less than a minute and most of the time all my HomeKit devices reconnect except for the Rachio. Which I just finished adding yet again.
As far as the ring doorbell I didn’t buy it due to not having HomeKit support. I do have a doorbell that does support HomeKit and now a second one has been released that I may switch to as it also records to Apple secure video unlike the one I have now.
Honestly at this point I would seek a refund and buy a different brand. This is what I advised everyone to do at our HOA meeting.
I knew going into this hobby of DYI home automation that available marketplace ecosystems are lacking and that each would be problematic this early in their evolution.
That’s why now I bundle HomeKi with Siri with Hubitat and Alexa to get everything I want done…
HomeKit has a fairly decent interface for bringing multiple mfg’s products together into a central control interface, and for the most part it works nicely and is reasonably reliable for manual touch commands from iOS and remote access.
While very difficult to figure out and complex to use, Habitat however just is better for reliability of the timed and triggered automation of devices, especially when the cloud is down during and internet outage. And once you get it working it is rock solid reliable.
Lastly, regarding voice automation, I have found that Alexa sometimes does better than Siri while other times Siri does better… And, so now, because of my Habitat which connects to my Rachio coupled with a $1.99 iOS/watchOS app called Voice in a Can, I can even control my Rachio from my Apple Watch via Alexa by just rising my arm and talking to my Watch.
So finally, at this point, I don’t even care about a refund, spending money on this hobby and figuring out how to get things done in it simply a cost of DYI home automation…
So for me, just for continued fun with my hobby, whether they get this working or not, next spring I plan on trying me out the Rainmachine HD (which now works with HomeKit). I’ll probably give my Rachio to my son who hasn’t automated his whole home yet.
As far as HomeKit integration I use it for more than just turning on and off my sprinklers. I have a bird enclosure and in the winter I don’t want the heater on while the sprinklers are on so my automation checks if the sprinklers are on and leaves the heater off until they finish.
Naturally this fails if the sprinklers disconnect from homekit.
Thank you for posting screenshots of what you are working on along with descriptions.
I apologize if I’ve been harsh but I’ve been burned too many times by vaporware or dropped short so only buy products that include features like HomeKit in the shipping product.
The Rachio having HomeKit integration was the sole reason I bought your product. So imagine my frustration and doubt when it was super buggy.
But I’ve come to really appreciate the integration with weather and soil type. Didn’t even know it did this when I bought it. This feature rocks.
My buying needs were simple. Replace my dumb controller with one that could turn on my pump and open three solenoid valves at set times that I could integrate into HomeKit. Actually considered using relays controlled by three smart plugs to do this.
So again I apologize after seeing your work in prograde. I honestly wasn’t sure if I believed that you’ were actually working on an update or just another product with dropped support.
I’m going to be kind of sad if each zone turns into its own accessory in HomeKit. The way it works now with just a single accessory and the zones under it is a lot cleaner.
That’s how it already works. The rachio is a bridge and each zone is a accessory .
You can see it is identified as a bridge in this screenshot from the Home+ app.
What app are you using? In the Home app, it just shows as one accessory and all of the zones are part of it, there is no hub that’s part of the Home App for the Rachio.
That is from the Home+ app. It is more powerful than the built in app. I use it for writing more complex automations. Like the one I posted showing an automatics that checks if the sprinklers are in and prevents the outdoor heater from coming on in my outdoor bird enclosure.
Here’s another one for those that say all HomeKit does is turn them on and off.
Besides the one I posted earlier about having the sprinklers turn off the heater on my bird enclosure for safety here’s another one that I forgot about.
I’ve had raccoon problems over the years. I have
motion sensors all over the outdoors. Normally they just turn on my security lighting but when I’ve had raccoon problems I had the motion sensors trigger my sprinklers for one minute. After doing this for a couple of weeks it scares them off for good
Bottom line is the most important part of homekit devices is to be able to easily integrate them into automation scripting.
All good reasons for Rachio to fix their problems and live up to the promises made years ago… The same promises that is on their packaging. The same promise made on their website and even Apple’s website as being a HomeKit compatible irrigation controller… All broken promises…
No doubt the Rachio is a good controller but it’s time to admit defeat or at a minimum apologize and remove all “HomeKit capable statements” from everything, everywhere AND offer a buy back of all Rachio 3’s to anyone that wants a refund.
As for me and my house, I will keep my Rachio. It has worked perfectly with HomeKit for the past 6 months on my Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad and Mac
