Hello, community,
I’m on my second Rachio Smart Hose, a replacement for the first one that failed to detect flow. This new one has an issue; the phone center was confused. The last time I tried email support, it took four days for a response, so I’m trying here.
This morning, the Rachio did not run its scheduled watering. I attempted to fire a quick run, but the slide-up modal hides after saying “sending…”, see the screen record:
The device shows a strong WiFi connection (in the app and my router), good battery health, and current firmware. No updates have been made to the device or network in two weeks. The batteries are brand new, two weeks old, and not rechargeable.
Since it failed while traveling, I assume I need to ask someone to check my place and press the physical button to see if it fires. If it doesn’t, replace the batteries and hope it is a fluke. If not, a larger issue may mean resetting or simply returning. I’m disappointed this device has failed to report issues so far. Please let me know if anyone thinks I missed anything. Thank you!
Hi Franz,
I had someone go onsite and press the blue button; the device fired without issue. After that successful quick run, the valve suddenly reports “disconnected.” Battery health is good and the hub has not moved (it is four feet away). My router reports the hub as connected with a full signal. I assume the recommendation will be to move the hub, even though this is the first time it’s happened. I’ll explore it when I return, and in the meantime, will ask my friend to manually quick run. The good part is this tells me where to look when I return: hub interface, or if not, something with the device itself had suddenly failed to connect. Last resort I’ll reset the device and test again. If this continues to happen, I’ll return this one too. Thank you.
…or, perhaps, your manual reboot is what helped it properly show the status disconnected. Either way, not a battery issue, I’ll check it out when I return.
The smart hose timer failed to connect after replacing batteries, manual runs, holding down the button until the red blinking lights kick in, or restarting the hub (in various orders). Only a ‘forget valve’ and re-adding the valve to my app worked.
I appreciate the attempted support, but since this is the second failed smart hose in under a month, I’m going to return the device.
I hope in the future you offer more detailed errors and reporting to the device for other users. Phone support had no idea how to help me, and no one has responded to my email support request after 72 hours (similar to the previous device issue that was replaced, which didn’t receive a response for over five days). I would pay much more for a device that’s reliable and had a more responsive customer service experience. But if your support is not able to help, and customers are left to fend for themselves, more detailed reporting would ease the pain. Best of luck!
Thanks, Franz. If it helps, I moved the hub and the valve went back to the same states: inactive, busy, then disconnected. I assume the device tries to reconnect to the hub after five minutes (per the faq), but I cannot find if it connects via radio (like my tempest), bluetooth, or localized 2.5ghz wifi. Maybe my devices are interfering with that system.
No. Eero wifi 7 (2.4, 5, and 6) mesh. I used to be in IT (mostly code and network admin) before an executive, so I know just enough to be dangerous. How does the smart timer connect to the hub? I can make sure the hub has a static IP with a wide open network.
Did everything work out? I’m having the exact same issue. One Hub and two Smart Hose valves… both the smart hose valves have the issue, so guessing it’s the hub.
You mentioned earlier that you had two failures. Were both failures due to this issue? You also mentioned that the only thing that worked was “forget valve” and to re-add? Did that resolve both times? Thanks in advance!
Hello! Sorry for the late reply. For me, my valve has been stable since this post, but I did two things that seems to have had success, and I cannot pinpoint which one provided stability:
Factory reset of the valve… which I did at least four times. Including choosing to ‘forget’ the valve and readd it.
Moved the hub. Interestingly I moved the hub further away from the rachio valve and closer to my wifi unit.
Moving the unit should not work if this is just connecting via bluetooth, but perhaps it did. The change:
Previously: Hub was three feet from the valve (separated by a glass door and an outer wall), but two rooms away from my wifi device (Eero 7 mesh).
Final: Hub is two rooms away from valve, but half a foot from the wifi device.
It’s possible my hub was losing wifi connectivity, but I have a pretty overkill setup and my device did not report any internet or device downtime. There was change in my internet service or devices at the time. My house is 1700 sq ft, but I have a tri-band wifi 7 unit that can handle 7,500 sq ft. I also have AT&T fiber optic (I installed last year). I have one of the most stable internet setups you could get in a residential environment. Nevertheless, since I’ve made the hub move AND the multiple resets, it’s been stable without issue.
Thanks for the reply. About 8 hours after originally asking, I actually got error messages on both my valves that they were disconnected (or a similar type of message in red font). Before the 8 hours or so, the iOS app made it look like everything should be operational… no error messages anywhere… guess it takes a lot of time for the app to update the status. Regardless, the app mentioned that forgetting and re-adding was one of the solutions when I finally got the error message.
So, I ended up forgetting and re-adding both valves and everything is back to normal for the past few days . I will continue to monitor to make sure they both stay on line so that my comfort level is good in the event I need to leave town for a week or two.
I didn’t move the hub at all. About 5-10 feet indoors for the outdoor Spigot (separated by a brick wall and window). My network is rock solid (3 eero pucks spread around and gig up/down ISP). Just find it weird that both valves pretty much disconnected at mostly the same time.
I’m going to consider this a one off for now and see how it goes going forward. As mentioned, I bought these at the beginning of summer and they have been working great until I posted a few days ago. Fingers crossed.
Fingers crossed it was a fluke, for sure! I think your experience amplifies the same frustration I had, and I hope Rachio offers more detailed error reporting like I suggested earlier. It would be nice to avoid a bland disconnected warning with something at least hinting if there is a down server, if there is no internet connection, if the device has disconnected from the hub, or something else entirely. Without any of that, we’re left with a guess and 101 troubleshooting.
