I’ve winterized my system for the season and moved to Standby Mode. Are there any possible negative affects by unplugging the unit for the season rather than leaving it plugged in for 5+ months?
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I’d like to know as well. My system was winterized today. I went ahead and set the controller to standby mode. Is there anything else I should do?
I’ve been using Rachio for over 6 years and I have always just put the controller in standby mode during the winter. This way any firmware updates can still be loaded onto the controller.
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I went ahead and just unplugged it this past Saturday afternoon as I winterized my lawn equipment for end of season. I figured that I won’t be using it for close to 5 months, so might as well preserve some of the life of the unit.
After winterizing last week, I unplugged my Rachio 3, as I’ve done the last two winters. Seems to be no ill effects. See no reason why using Standby wouldn’t work though. Not sure one is a better approach than the other long term. Unplugging may save a minor bit of electricity where going to Standby allows the unit to still receive any updates that may be transmitted, I think.
Power surges can be tough on electronics. If one has multiple outages each winter due to trees in the power lines or lightning strikes, there may be some value in disconnecting your Rachio. I personally use surge arrestors in our house to mitigate this problem.
This is great info! We recommend Standby mode as your Rachio will still receive updates including firmware updates and soil moisture tracking for Flex Daily users. You’re also less likely to need to re-connect through WiFi via the WiFi Update (although this is largely dependant on whether network changes have occurred). There is very low power consumption in Standby mode. Still, it is up to user preference. There is nothing wrong with unplugging it if that is what you prefer.