My Apple TV is also hard wired to my network, my HomeKit performance is also rock solid IF I exclude Rachio & a pair of Hunter fans that I have. I have 120+ HomeKit devices.
Glad all the important questions on this thread are being answered! 
Ha! Classic.
My Apple TV is also hardwired. My network is split into 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. All my HomeKit is on the 2.4 GHz. Everything is rocksalt except the Rachio controller.
So I’m now having to put it back onto HomeKit almost every day.
It’s been over two years and now you don’t seem to be even trying to fix it anymore.
Is it time to refund everybody and take these controllers back?
I just finished putting it back in the homekit once again. I’m trying something new this time.
Because of the issues with the rachio I split my Wi-Fi into two networks a 2.4 GHz and a 5 GHz network.
Rachio is one of my few devices I have that also can be put on the 5 GHz network. Up until now I’ve been putting it on the 2.4 GHz along with all my other HomeKit devices and putting my mobile devices on the 5 GHz. I’ve been doing this because when my mobile device switches from Wi-Fi to cellular I noticed it often knocks the Rachio offline.
So this time I put the Rachio on the 5 GHz network and switched my mobile devices to the 2.4 GHz network so now the only thing on the 5 GHz network is the rachio.
Not that I think this will actually fix the issue but at this point I’m willing to try just about anything.
It won’t work/hold. I have separate 2.4 and 5ghz channels and tried this already. This is simply broken HomeKit in Rachio’s software. They are fixing it. Yes it’s taking them longer than we al hoped but it’s apparent they are working on it. There really is no solution other than getting the new software that fixes the issue. All of these suggestions with wired connections and trying different frequency will only lead to more disappointment.
And to address those saying “HomeKit is useless…”, I I specifically bought the Rachio because of HomeKit support. As others who use HomeKit, we use automation and triggers more than just turning off and on zones. You don’t need to know all the different use cases HomeKit users have (even with sprinklers), just understand it’s more important to some compared to others. So with that said, yes, I fully expect HomeKit to work when a product says it will. If it doesn’t, I move on to a company that has a working HomeKit product. I’m not ready to move on from Rachio as they are actively working on a fix. However, if we get into the summer and nothing has been fixed, I’ll be dumping the Rachio unit and looking for a different option.
Same here.
I paid an extra $100 for HomeKit compatibility and now after two years it’s still is not reliable.
I don’t think it can be fixed. I think they have to replace the hardware as after two years and multiple developers working on this it is still not fixed.
I can’t believe they’re still advertising homekit compatibility. They are going to end up with a big class action lawsuit over this.
100% agree with this! Only reason I spent the extra money and the most frustrating thing is it is still advertised as HomeKit enabled. Can’t imagine buying it right now all excited to use HomeKit and it does not actually work.
Shocked Apple still sells it on there store.
New hardware is not needed. It’s software. It’s just taking them time as I expect they are adding new features while releasing the fix. I’m assuming it will come out as an “all-inclusive” update. Rachio uses a 3rd party dev company to program their HomeKit support. That company provided the updated/fixed software to Rachio months ago. Rachio is now just packaging it up in their software package. I feel it shouldn’t have taken this much time but it has. The reason I’m still hopeful is I know the 3rd party provided Rachio with a working version of the HomeKit software.
I don’t know. The last developer was showing the progress and how they were trying to load the newest software before the built-in software loaded and ended up breaking the controller.
Pardon my ignorance (I’m not a HomeKit user), but what does this entail?
If it can be automated, couldn’t you (or someone here with coding skills and the inclination to do so), write a simple script that polls for connectivity every few minutes; when lost, reconnection would be attempted automatically until successful. This could run in the background on almost anything at home that is on 24/7 (Mac, Raspberry Pi, etc.) It could also alert you to reconnection failures so you could power cycle the controller or take other corrective action.
Occasionally I’ll have a HomeKit device for whatever reason disconnect. Just simply cycled power and it goes right back online. This is rare but sometimes happens when power briefly goes on and off during storms.
I have a huge amount of HomeKit devices. It works really well and his trouble free and I control everything with my voice and I’ve created actions when I say something there’s a fox in action. Like when I leave my houseI tell Siri to secure the crib. That turns off the AC and puts the alarm and locks my door and closers the garage door and turns off lights that are part of this action.
This is just an example of one of my HomeKit automations. You can do some pretty powerful scripting including and or if type actions as all the HomeKit devices talk to each other over WiFi. For remote access you need an Apple hub. For my hub I’m using an AppleTV.
The rachio controller…
When it drops off of HomeKit it can not be reconnected by cycling its power. The Rachio is actually a hub and each zone is a homekit device. It’s a really nice controller.
When it drops off of HomeKit this is what is needed to readd it.
Take cover off
Hold down the WiFi button until the display turns white.
Open the rachio phone app and go to controller add to WiFi.
Wait for window to open and select your WiFi.
Watch controller do a light show that you hope ends with it turning blue.
Hit done in rachio app or hit cancel if it timed out.
Wait on next screen until it says WiFi added.
The above works without issues about two thirds of the time. When it doesn’t work then you start going through an ever increasing amount of steps.
Thanks for the details. I hope that you don’t mind a few more questions.
When HomeKit is not being used, Rachio 3 is still not very robust about reestablishing a Wi-Fi connection after a power glitch, network outage, AP reboot, etc. However, there are numerous credible posts indicating that cycling power is almost always sufficient for it to reconnect.
In your case, if you merely cycle power does it successfully reconnect to Wi-Fi (e.g. a Quick Run will work) but is somehow offline only for HomeKit purposes? Or, does the HomeKit association render the controller completely offline after cycling power? If the latter, what do the lights indicate? What other info do you have that may be relevant (does it appear in your AP’s cllient list? get an IP address? can be pinged?)
If the controller is working properly (including HomeKit) and you cycle its power, does it reconnect ok? If not, what goes wrong?
It connects just fine to WiFi. Actually it never seems to drop off of wifi.
What breaks is connecting to HomeKit.
When it drops off of HomeKit the steps I mentioned are the only way to get it to reconnect.
I use its HomeKit intervention for more than just turning on and off my sprinklers but when I’m outside working on my yard being able to control it using Siri while wearing my Apple Watch is a big deal as I don’t have to handle a device with my wet and dirt covered hands.
I have other hubs too. Lutron and Hue are two of my hubs. They have never disconnected from HomeKit and have been 100% reliable. I also have a Raspberry Pi computer that connects to non-homekit devices that never gone off-line.
Sometimes just adding the Rachio back into HomeKit does not work and then I have to totally remove it by holding down the stop button and then going through all the steps I write about and then re-adding it to HomeKit and setting everything back up again with HomeKit.
So in answer to your question it died not drop off of wifi it disconnects from HomeKit and is a complete PITA to get connected again.
If the Rachio app included Siri intents and shortcut functionality, that could solve some of the features you’re missing without HomeKit. I keep hoping for that since I still have a Rachio Gen 2 (no HomeKit and I got tired of maintaining HomeBridge).
Then couldn’t you interface it to the Rachio API and bypass the ‘official’ HomeKit integration altogether? If you start with something very simple (e.g. you can ask Siri to run a zone) and publish it, I would expect there would lots of community interest and contributions to the project.
As an outsider I may be missing something important, but it seems to me that this would be superior in several regards:
In order to have Siri control something it has to be connected to HomeKit.
Also You could have HomeKit query devices to add to scripting actions. Like I could create an action that stopped the sprinklers if I’m home or something like that.
What I do have setup is if the bird enclosure heater is on do not run the sprinklers. Or if the sprinklers come on turn off the bird heater.
Sure, but you said that you had a Pi that interfaced your non-HomeKit devices, I presume to HomeKit using
https://www.howtogeek.com/450676/how-to-connect-any-smart-device-to-homekit-with-a-raspberry-pi/
or similar.
Once connected, I assume that Siri can control it, same as with native HomeKit devices.
It works well enough but my next alarm system will be HomeKit native.
Interesting does this work with the rachio version 3?
I’m not ion a static IP. I use the noip.com service to access my OOSSXX home security camera’s NVR.
I’ve tried to build a HomeKit interface to them using HomeBridge but I’ve never been able to get it to work.
