Smart Lighting Controller (SLC)

New Rachio Products
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Updated 5 & 6 the next morning. You can see what I “deleted” as they are struck out. I added text after that.

I just got my first Smart Lighting Controller today. I have not hooked it up yet, but did get it connected to the Internet and within my Rachio app. Consequently, I will have subsequent posts concerning it as I do more. Here are my thoughts, problems, suggestions, etc.

  1. Setup seemed SUPER easy. This might be due to the Matter interface. Besides scanning the QR code, I hardly did anything. Once connected, I named my zones.
  2. It has three zones. I really wish it had more or more was an option, but it might make sense with the 200W maximum power. If everything works out, I will likely get at least another one. currently have five zones and wanting to expand to at least seven.
  3. It seems pretty beefy, probably because of the 200W
  4. Where the wires hook in, it is open on the bottom with a door the covers the face of the connectors. Opening & closing that door kind of scares me just a bit, like I could break it if I do it too hard. It might actually be fine and I will just be careful and not play with it too much. Down the bottom is where the wires will go. Everything seems like it would close up nicely, but I do wish that some kind of cover existed around the wires to keep dirt / sand from blowing into the connector and wondering if wasps might make a nest up in there.
  5. On the top are four buttons, one for each zone plus a “turn on all zones” button. The buttons are lit red at all times (with a small red dot on next to it), which I am not so sure that I like and maybe wish that I could dim them down or turn them off. When I turn on a zone through a button (or app) and the “all” button is white-ish with a small green dot, just that zone is on (red) and a small white dot. That probably is fine. I just realized something that may be causing the lights to be acting funny . . . I had power-cycled the unit a few times last night with no updated results. I left it unplugged overnight and this morning plugged it back in and it behaved differently. Only the green dot appeared when nothing is on. When I turn any zone on, the zone button light is on with a white dot by it. This seems much more reasonable compared to what I was seeing before. At one point, I lost my Wi-Fi connection and the green dot started flashing blue and I was still able to control zones with the buttons. Once it reconnected, it went back green.
  6. Within the app, I found that it has a “Wattage Usage” which is very cool. However, I am finding it says “284% capacity (567/200 Watts)” with the last update time. This overcurrent might be indicating something with the lights, not really sure. I did double check to make sure nothing is jammed into the connectors. Because of the overcurrent, it makes sure all zones that are on get turned off which is nice to protect! I do not know what was happening last night, but everything seems good. This morning, I even shook the unit to see if anything was bouncing around inside which it seemed to be silent. As expected, no wires connected now shows the wattage usage at 0%. With monitoring of the current, overcurrent makes sure all zones that are on gets turned off which is nice to protect!
  7. Staying in the app for the rest, besides naming each zone, it is very easy to turn on/off zone(s) and a photo can be attached to each zone name
  8. One can create “Areas” which is a collection of zones then you can turn on/off the area.
  9. One can also create “Scenes” that seems to allow quickly setting dim levels, of course with lights that support it.
  10. Finally, schedules can created for zones, areas, or scenes. For any day(s) of the week that you wish setting “on” and “off” times which can be relative to sunrise / sunset by +/-120min in 15min intervals or at exact specific times.
  11. I tried linking Matter apps & services and tried select app: got (Google) Home which tried connecting, but “can’t find device”. Also, SmartLife seems to have connected, but “the device type is not supported temporarily”. I also tried manually adding the device through SmartLife with the QR code and got “Failed to Discover Device”. I did not find how use the pairing code. I would hope to be able to link to both.
  12. I do wish I had a “Quick Run” (AKA Countdown or Timer) type of mode that I can, without a schedule have the zone, area, or scene on for a specific amount of time. This is a more than a “nice thing”.
  13. It would be awesome to be able to do some smarter scenes, such as when I turn on a water feature on a Rachio sprinkler zone AND at sunset the light zone would come on
  14. A nice thing might include: Smart lights’ circulate mode, also known as cycle mode, is a feature that allows you to schedule your smart lights to turn on and off automatically at regular intervals within a specific time frame. This creates a dynamic lighting effect and can be used for various purposes, such as creating a desired ambiance or automating a specific routine.
  15. And yet another nice thing: Smart lights can be set to operate in a “random mode” or similar functionality, often through routines or automations, to simulate occupancy and deter potential burglars when you’re away. This feature can be found in various smart home platforms and apps, allowing you to schedule lights to turn on and off at random times within a specified range.
  16. And finally: Inching mode for smart lights allows you to set a specific on-time for a light, after which it will automatically turn off, acting like a momentary switch. This is useful for situations where you want a light to stay on briefly, like for a short-duration task, and then automatically turn off without needing to manually switch it off.

Wow, that ended up being a bit long, More to come when I hook up more, well I guess depending on what is going on with the overcurrent.

3 Likes
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Thanks for the detailed write up. Do you know if it support colored lights? With my current system I can change the color of the landscape lights. I’ve contacted Rachio, but no response.

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I know it can accept dimmable lights, but do not think that it can change colors on its own.

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Update on this . . .

My unit is being sent in to have it checked out mostly because of the over-wattage. I found the following link Smart Lighting Controller: Troubleshooting Guide & LED Reference which seems to tell me all the LED states, plus how to power cycle, Wi-Fi reset, and Factory Reset. Interestingly, it does not mention the zone buttons can be used to turn on/off zones, but that was very obvious. That page seemed to be very helpful in debugging. I took a look in the box and looked at the mounting bracket, which is very cool with that tiny bubble level built in.

Smart Life: It appears that I was able to add it, but it is sounding like the “type” needs to be registered with Smart Life / Tuya for it to be recognized.

Google Home: The best I was able to get this was that it added the device, but it was listed as offline when it was not.

I was going to try some more things with the last two, but sent off the device for debugging.

Another thing that I learned is that when the device is removed from the Rachio app, the device is reset. That seems very cool for changing owners, but does wipe out any programming which might be somewhat of a disadvantage for some. I view the lights as not nearly as critical as irrigation though.

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It would depend on the technology being used to control the color changing. A very small handful of VERY expensive RGBW lighting systems utilize a communication wire added to the run to talk to the lights and make them change color. A more common, and newer technology is to utilize secure BT networks to create the mesh and changing of colors. Other, less expensive options utilize wifi to talk to the string of lights (think Govee or Hue, but those aren’t usually expandible, and utilize their own apps to make changes.

All that to be said, the Rachio unit itself is a basic lighting transformer at the core, with a pretty cool cloud based UI. It can dim the lights by adjusting the voltage out of the unit, but cannot control color changing.

1 Like
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Another update:

Over wattage: I actually ran into this problem again. Rachio wanted to take a look, so it was sent back to see what was going on. They sent me a new one which I have not had the issue.

Google Home: I still had the same issues, but then suddenly it started working. This is my first Matter device and I am a bit less than impressed. I have heard about other Matter devices having the same kind of issue . . . it gets connected and then shows offline even though other apps show it online. This seemed to happen overnight, sometimes would show online a while later, a couple of times showed online about 30 seconds after power-cycling the Rachio, and now does not seem to experience that.

SmartLife: Rachio is working on the device type not supported. I do not know what type it is, but must be something new, requiring a change to SmartLife.

Other features: Rachio appreciates the suggestions I gave them and are looking at implementations in the future. They are not showstoppers for me. I really like the device and need to finish replacing my Frankenstein unit that I built after getting more wire to mount it properly.

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I still need to remove the Frankenstein unit (need to run more wires from where that is inside a buried box to where the SLC is located (not all that far) when I can get my available time to cooperate with the weather. An interesting thing I found with that is that if you have some kind of unit or switch after the SLC, the wattage used may be wrong when that zone is turned it. The SLC seems to read the wattage to update on the server & app when a state change occurs within the SLC. In other words,

  • turn on zone 1 with downstream switch off will register no wattage
  • turn on that switch which powers the lights and it will still register no wattage
  • turn on zone 2 with no load on it will “fix” the wattage on zone 1

I realize that my set up is kind of strange right now and definitely not the norm.

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Has anyone learned when the round 2 pre-sale units will actually ship? Rachio took my $ almost 6 months ago now with zero updates on their “inventory” issues.

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It would be helpful to have consistent, frequent updates on the status of production and shipping. The last communication regarding Spring delivery is somewhat vague.