Hi all I am new to the community and love the Rachio controller. I have a deer problem and was wondering if there is a way to modify my controller as a motion sensor to repel deer. Thanks. Jason
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You could probably do that with a relay that can be triggered by the type of current the motion sensor operates on.
You would take the Permanent 24VAC on two right terminals and connect them to the zone in question via a relay that would be controlled by the Motion sensor.
When the motion sensor turns on it would trigger the relay that would in turns send the 24VAC to the Zone in question.
To identify what relay can be used, we would need to know what type of motion sensor would be used and what current it operates on.
But there are turnkey systems that are made to turn on/off a sprinkler based on motion sensing, so there is really no need to involve the Rachio, you could just have that zone wired in parallel from both the Rachio and the motion sensing system, so that either system would turn it on.
In all likelihood, you would probably want a dedicated sprinkler for that as the existing ones may not have the proper orientation or strenght, in which case it would not need to have anything to do with the zone wired to the Rachio…
This would be a great feature of Rachio. Having the ability to set a motion sensor schedule late at night and early morning hours. Turn on the sprinkler when it detects motion for a period of time. I do this manually to get the deer out from tearing up our landscaping.