Rachio 3 Not Responding in Homekit (Again)

I must admit, I miss @Macsterguy reminders of how great it works for him. :slight_smile:

Absolutely Rock Solid on iPhone, iPad & Mac :slightly_smiling_face:

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Oh FFS. lol

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I just had ti Google The definition of FFS… :joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy: I am actually laughing / crying.

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When I saw what you did there…! lol

Made me laugh. Glad we both got some humor today!

Decided to drop back by and see if anything had been resolved, SOSDD. Best thing I did before my year of ownership was up I returned it to Costco for a full refund. No more problems, at all. New system with HomeKit is spot on plus never dropped WiFi once since I installed it. This thread is very well known and shared around the various groups that discuss HomeKit, seems Rachio doesn’t care about the bad press they just keep pushing them out the door without a care. Sorry folks, good luck!

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I will double that… FFS! (I also had to look it up!)

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So far I have been unable to connect my new unit with HomeKit however I don’t really care. I much prefer having the system decide when to water the lawn with intelligence rather than me telling Siri to turn the system on. Besides, I have a separate app that I can open and turn on my sprinklers if needed. That being said I would not mind having HomeKit compatibility but it is not that big of an issue

My controller is still on the same beta they rolled out back in April (version “iro3-firmware-hk-11-8”). Did the version number change at all? Can anyone verify if they’ve actually received this beta? (Or does roll out not mean it will be installed to their previous/current beta tester’s devices?)

Who did you roll it out to? What version is it so we can check if we have it? @dane

The real value of it is being able to voice-activate zones via Siri when you’re, say, out in the yard repairing sprinkler heads, adjusting nozzles, or whatever. It sucks to pull a nozzle off, turn the zone on to flush the junk out of it, but holding the stem in one hand and fumbling around with a wet phone screen trying to turn the zone off with the other, all while getting absolutely soaked.

HomeKit worked for me for like 2 days after I bought it, and the Siri voice commands were SO nice to have. Then it stopped wanting to add to HomeKit for all of eternity and thus arriving me at this thread of despair.

I’m sure they’re hard at work on Rachio 4’s HomeKit capabilities though!

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I think a lot of it has to do with Apple and not Rachio. Apple is hard at work adding support for other platforms through an alliance. Rachio isn’t the only device having issues. https://www.cultofmac.com/742226/matter-home-automation-alliance-homekit-compatible-devices/

I’d disagree. I participate in the matter standard groups and Apple seems to have employees devoted to that directly (like most of the other companies who work on this and other standards) and they aren’t pulling the resources from existing products (at least from what I see) Well managed technical companies don’t drop the support aspect of products to work on new standards that MAY or MAY NOT actually supersede existing functionality.

I am also an architect and write firmware for IOT devices (including Homekit) and this is definitely Rachio’s fault and problem (either directly or the subcontractor their hired to do the work – one or both don’t have any clue what they’re doing). The fact that this problem has existed for TWO YEARS shows technical incompetence.

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That is mostly what I use HomeKit for. I enjoy working in my yard. I don’t enjoy having a $1500 iPhone in the yard with me risking breaking it so I only am wearing my AppleWatch often while also wearing AirPods so it’s nice to control my sprinklers with SirI.

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I have a ton of HomeKit stuff and Rachio is the only device I have a lot of issues with.

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I find it amazing that they have just now enabled logging in to their beta.

And the newest annoying thing it’s doing is when I leave my house shows off-line. If I restart my hub it works properly for a few days but then I have to restart my hub again. So for whatever reason, it stops talking to my Apple TV hub and I lose remote access. All my other Homekit devices are fine just the Rachio doing this.

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I’m sorry about your luck

Waited 7+ months, finally have the beta (newest), and can’t add the Rachio 3 to HomeKit. I enter the digits manually in Home app, and it finds nothing. Emailed support a week ago and heard nothing back. So basically have the beta, can’t test it… Oh well. Your results may very.

It’s almost funny.
Yesterday my power kept on going on and off for a bit and then went off for hours.

It tuns out that if you cycle the power to a LIFX bulb that is how you reset it to factory defaults which is exactly what happened to two of my LIFX bulbs, but not the light strips.

Took me a long time to figure out why my LIFX bulbs would no longer connect to the LIFX app or HomeKit.

After much web searching I found out that I had to re-add them in. This also meant setting up their automations all over again.

But oddly the Rachio came back online without me having to do anything.

You’re just making this up Terri, surely! Having said which my Radish 3 stayed connected to HomeKit for a surprisingly long time until I had some electrical work done around the house that involved turning breakers off and on an unfeasibly large number of times. It’s not connected now, but that might be because I haven’t made five minutes to go and restart it and add it back in to the HomeKit walled garden.

(Only kidding about the “making it up” thing)

Jon.

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