Thoughts from first time Rachio user

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I just recently joined the Rachio family with a purchase of two smart hose timers and the hub and I wanted to share some thoughts I had as I went through setting them up.

  • New user setup was pretty easy, but I would suggest adding support for a password manager to be used when creating the password for an account and that way it also gets saved(this was done on iOS)
  • The power port on the Hub is pretty loose. I worry this is going to break.
  • I really wish the Hub just plugged into an outlet instead of having a brick. Maybe take a lesson from Orbit on what they did with their hub.
  • Wow is the LED on the Hub bright. Why is there not a way to have it turn off once the hub is booted up? You never know where the Hub is going to be, so should be able to turn the LED off. I ended up having to put electrical tape over the LED.
  • The hose timer is bigger than I expected, but hopefully holds up better than Orbit’s timer
  • Wow is the LED on the timers really bright too. I had to place away from me because of how blinding it is as it blinked during firmware upgrade. Thankfully it shuts off once it’s booted.
  • Setup of the first hose timer went pretty smoothly. Unfortunately the second one would not boot. Support was quick to work with me to confirm this and I will be receiving a replacement unit.
    • Interestingly, I don’t have to send the bad unit back. Would have thought they might be interested why it didn’t boot
  • I’m kind of surprised that there wasn’t some sort of schedule guidance based on location and other factors. While that might not be useful for Pros, I think most of us might benefit to having something that suggests timings based on lawn, plants, amount of sun, etc. As it is my understanding most people over water their plants and lawn. So having something that suggests frequency and timings would be helpful in my opinion.
  • The app is pretty easy to use. Had to look around for some things, but just took some tapping around.

I’m sure some of these have been expressed by others, but just wanted to share my two cents.

Excited to have Rachio watering my lawn.

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I am not positive what kind of guidance you are looking for. I do have in-ground sprinklers, but still water with hose at times. My first thought it there are so many types of sprinklers available on a hose that it seems rather difficult to give much guidance. I could be wrong through. The main hose sprinklers that I periodically use include: traveling, back & forth fan type, impact, and multiple circle heads. Each are very different in timing. Looks like great feedback. The Rachio sprinkler controller has the ability to adjust the brightness of the LEDs, which I have mine on the lowest . . . sounds like the Timer and Hub could use the same feature.

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Appreciate the response and no, not looking for any advice. As you note, there are lots of variables that go into how often and how much you want to water. Just one of the things I did find useful when I used the B-Hyve app and timers and it allows for you to account for a lot of the different variables.

Yeah, I hope they bring the brightness control to the Hub at least. Thankfully the timer’s LED does shut off when it’s set up. Though control of it wouldn’t be undesired either.