There must be a few new owners of the Rachio Smart Lighting Controller (SLC) on this forum. Hope you’re amazed at the possibility of this thing. Tried all day today to get a working HomeKit accessory - without success. Best attempt, of many, was a 3-switch Light that simply couldn’t be enabled, though nothing necessary between my iPhone (Rachio app), Apple TV (Matter) and the SLC seems amiss - all on the same network, reachable, occasionally communicating, etc. The SLC and Rachio app together are like butter.
Hi @JBTexas I’m glad the SLC and the Rachio app are working well, but I’d like to figure out how to get it working the way you want it to with your SmartHome setup.
Can I get a little more information on exactly what you are trying to do? Since you have it in the Rachio app, are you just trying to get the Smart Lighting Controller in the Apple Home app?
Am I understanding correctly that you are also having issues with a 3-switch light?
dane Rachio Squad
May 20
Hi @JBTexas I’m glad the SLC and the Rachio app are working well, but I’d like to figure out how to get it working the way you want it to with your SmartHome setup.
Can I get a little more information on exactly what you are trying to do? Since you have it in the Rachio app, are you just trying to get the Smart Lighting Controller in the Apple Home app?
With the SLC installed and 2 zones in use (the third disabled), I want to make available in the Home app whatever SLC features can be controlled from that application. I installed the SLC first via the Rachio app without any particular difficulties - using the 2-band WiFi 2.4 & 5 GHz channel of my router, as my iPhone and the Rachio controller were operating on that band. Since the SLC is mounted on a stone wall on the rear of my home with an immediately adjacent receptacle, the installation was simple.
Looking ahead, I did some testing that I could switch all the appropriate parts of a full Matter interface (which will include one of my Apple TV devices or a Meross H3 hub as needed) to an available 2.4 dedicated router channel if needed. Some hoops to jump through there, but doable.
For the Home app interface, I followed the directions from your Help Center:
iOS:
• Open the Apple Home app and tap the (+) to add an accessory.
• Lift the Smart Lighting Controller’s front plate and scan the QR code.
• Follow the steps in the Apple Home app to connect SLC with Apple Home.
This didn’t work immediately, which briefly sent me back to making sure my iPhone/Rachio app ↔ SLC interface wasn’t modified. Eventually, the steps above did result in adding an Accessory to the Home app originally installed as a single tile for the controller, but adjusted that to present separate switches for my 2 zones (3 tiles for the SCL - the 3 zone switches). That all looked great, but it could do nothing - all the new accessory controls were disabled and displayed with “Updating” or “not connected” messages. Tried everything again, some under the direction of the chatbot on your site where all the devices get rebooted, reset, updated. No changes, no improvement to the inactive status of the zone switches - which I guess, at this point is all I was really expecting. At no time through all the restarts, and resets of the SLC did anything change in its abilities to operate with the app or independently. I did restart one time by deleting the HomeKit accessory completely and doing all the above again, with the same results. I never tried de-installing the SLC (factory resetting it, deleting it from the Rachio app, or otherwise trying to do it backwards - connect via HomeKit first, then the Rachio app. I know enough to suspect that’s a bad idea anyway. (I have some thermostats, switches and sensors with issues like that. I’m app-first.)
Am I understanding correctly that you are also having issues with a 3-switch light?
I mentioned the “3 switch light” because that’s how HomeKit presents the SLC initially - just like it did (and does) with my Rachio watering zones - a cluster of switches. You can cause HomeKit to present instead independent switches (tiles) without any tile for the controller itself. They don’t have an icon for something like your controller, nor an icon for an exterior landscape light. I’d like to learn what I CAN do that carries to HomeKit, but there’s no particular urgency to do so. I’m suspecting a Matter issue, I don’t have many Matter-capable devices. I did see a potential bug - that a disabled controller lighting can’t be hidden in HomeKit as it can in the Rachio app equivalent… HomeKit it seems will ALWAYS present 3 switches - including the disabled one.
Thanks for following up. I’m just learning what I might do with this terrific gear. I have a whole 'nother world of lighting on the other side of my home that might need another SLC. I’ve talked to the SiteOne office in Tyler, TX about this controller - they’re remarkably blasé about the potential pro-level business opportunities in this town for Rachio. As the price of water in Texas rises, they’ll catch on.
Regards,
John Bishop
I don’t have the smart lighting but based on their recent pro presentation, it supports matter. So maybe add it as a matter device, apple home should adopt it that way. That is what I do with my other matter devices.
Thanks. It does seem that the Home app adds the Lighting Controller as an accessory with 3 sub-accessories. I’ve not yet found a way to enable those accessories. Almost surely, there should be a Matter handshake between the controller and my Apple Home hub (an Apple TV), originally mediated by the Rachio app, but it hasn’t happened - the accessories are not enabled, and though Apple home indicates “updating” briefly, they never are. I’ve got several different Matter devices integrated. Some easy, some not.
Thank you for the additional details, John. I would like to see if we can schedule some time to meet over video call. I’d like to do a screenshare also. I am DM’ing a link to schedule a meeting with me and my colleague.