To start, I have not yet rebooted my router. That’s most likely the cause but not sure.
I had my Rachio 3 online without connection issues all winter, but I opened my water line and activated my flex schedule a couple weeks ago and its been dropping its wifi connection every couple days since. I have to go through the steps (2nd light blinking) to reconnect to wifi. It only takes a few seconds to do but its getting annoying. This is the only device having connection issues. Is anybody else having issues?
Once I remember to reboot my router during some downtime hours I’ll update status here, but wanted to get this posted before I forgot to do this too, lol. Wondering if my R3’s wifi radio is going bad.
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Good luck . My Rachio 3 was working great until the software update . Bricked my sprinkler controller. I didnt notice it until my lawn started turning brown . Rachio customer service started its common. They offered to replace the unit at discounted price . Why would I.go.down that rabbit hole again ?
Purchase Wyze . Plugged the AC adapter it started to smell and got too hot to touch . Took it back foe a refund .
Went the Orbit B hyve less than the price of th Rachio 3 discounted.
Rebooting my router didn’t change anything this past week.
And a new issue. My R3 went offline last night and my sprinkler system ran this morning (it was scheduled for tomorrow). I reconnected the R3 when I got home a couple hours ago and it has no record of watering today. It also still has it scheduled to run again tomorrow, all zones. And to top it off, it doesn’t have anymore runs lined up on the calendar for May, June, July, etc.
Why wouldn’t it have record of running all zones today? Any help or suggestion on getting the R3 to work properly again?
Edit: I cancelled tomorrow’s run, then undid the cancellation, and it reset everything on the calendar. It is no longer scheduled to run again tomorrow. Still no record of today’s run though.
Edit #2: I should also mention if I pull the power when it goes offline, it doesn’t reconnect to wifi when the power is plugged back in.
I’m not 100% sure about this, but stabbing in the dark a bit. Depending on your schedule type, Rachio can run for a couple weeks (Flex Daily) or indefinitely (fixed) with no internet connection once operational. During that disconnect, the unit itself will run, but I don’t think it stores the history of the runs to send back to the cloud once internet is reestablished.
As for your Edit #2. I’ve had numerous Rachio units, Gen1, 2, and 3 over the years and they have all ALWAYS reconnected to wifi after a power outage. Usually, this behavior is something on your network side, possibly with the way some mesh systems handle SSID’s.
Thanks! I should’ve mentioned I use flex daily. Interesting to know the history doesn’t report but the schedule updates itself when it reconnects and refreshes. Or maybe the history will eventually update too.
Regarding edit #2, it was only pertaining to the wifi disconnecting issue. When I’ve had power outages while the R3 is online it reconnects no problem. I saw a post on another thread someone saying their R3 would loose wifi connection, they’d unplug/replug power and it would reconnect.
Edit (lol): On home page of the app, going into Usage and scrolling to the bottom where daily usage appears, the past run shows there. Does not show up anywhere else, run times, etc.
Not 100% sure on that. I only had one prolonged outage with one of my controllers. Apparently the plug used is tied to the same GFCI as my smoker, and when it rained one night, I had my smoker uncovered and it popped the GFCI. I honestly don’t recall looking, or even thinking to look at the history to see what it did or didn’t do…
R3 is still going offline every few days since May began. I also noticed something else this past week, my network data usage went crazy this month. I have no way to isolate different devices on my network to check their data use unless I disconnect everything else, which is not going to happen. Is there a way for the Rachio team to see how much data my R3 is using? Like if its messed up pulling weather data too much and ddos’ itself, loses wifi connection until I reconnect it.
Edit: I’ll check my network logs this evening too. Seems odd to have used almost 800 Gb more data on my network for May than I usually do combined with my R3 consistently losing connection (the only device losing connection).
Edit 2: Nothing out of the ordinary in network logs.
My controller is still disconnecting from wifi, up until now its been the same #2 light flashing light blue, and reconnecting to wifi within the app. I’m home and my controller just lost connection. However this time its light section #1, with green on the left and orange blinking, then no lights and still no wifi connection. Rinse and repeat.
Update: It reverted itself back to 1st light solid, second light blinking light blue and reconnected to wifi.
Still curious what green and orange means
I contacted support about this and think its time to close this out. The green and orange is a firmware update indicator. My gen3 has not had any wifi issues since. My guess is since early May it was getting hung up with the firmware update and going offline, this time it finished.
Spoke too soon, back offline again 
I just purchased mine and has the same issue. Also, I programed it at 4am and I can’t get up at this time to do the trouble shooting.
Curious what manufacture date does yours have? Its indicated inside the cover panel. Mine is January 2021. Not sure if that has anything to do with this.
I just got mine reconnected again, had to pull the power this time to get it to do anything. It did the green and orange again for a minute, then 1st bar went solid light blue and this time 2nd bar blinked yellow instead of light blue, then reconnected to wifi through the rachio app like I’ve been doing. I haven’t heard back yet from support on what recommendation they may have moving forward. Hopefully they can check my controller and figure something out because this is getting ridiculous.
If it goes offline, it will run it’s planned schedules at it’s last connection, for 2 weeks. Once it re-connects for a short while, it will calculate it’s next 2 weeks worth.
It is a shame that it doesn’t store what it actually did. Therefore, upon resumption, it think that there has been zero watering, and waters everywhere.
Download Wifiman from Ubiquiti Networks. Excellent app for WiFi info. You want your router running the 2.4ghz band on channels 1, 6 or 11 only.
One thing I did notice is that the Rachio is very slow to reconnect to WiFi. I have a Bressler weather station which would be using the same WiFi, and if the WiFi is off and comes back, the weather station is reconnected almost instantly, while the Rachio could be 20 mins later
If you use fixed schedules, it will actuslly run indefinitely…Flex schedules are the ones to run 2 weeks.
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The weird thing is it does store what it did if you scroll down and look at ‘usage’, but it doesn’t store it anywhere else, like total run time, past calendar view, etc.
They disconnect regularly. It’s a feature not a bug. I have to power cycle mine all the time, though my RSSI is -48, which is frankly about as good as It gets short of being next to the router.
My ASUS mesh system has no problem streaming 4k on any floor in my house, so I can only assume the issue is with Rachio.
Nevertheless, the convenience of the system is enough to make me just accept the issue. I might hook up a wifi switch if the problem persists, and write a script or something to power cycle it once a week. If I were really clever, I might be able to even automate the power cycle with some sort of iPhone custom Shortcut app, but that’s probably overkill at this stage.
Or I could just pony up the $40 for a HomeKit-supported smart outlet.
I have a more recent post about this, but my rachio only disconnects (aside from actual internet outages) May-June, then stays connected the rest of the year. Its something to do with firmware updates, orange and green lights, every may/june it gets hung up on an update and needs to be power cycled and wifi reconfigured. Three years in a row now its done the same thing, by the end of June no more issues until next May.
If yours is disconnecting more frequently, it could be due to router channel switching or weak signal possibly.
The signal strength is -48. It’s very strong. Nothing drops wifi around here except my Rachio. And even if some other device on my network exhibited similar behavior, at least it automatically reconnects. For whatever reason, Rachio has chosen not to encode this feature, instead opting for manually establishing a connection/reconnection.
This is why all the support guides referencing the wifi reset button only ask if you’ve moved or have a new router, etc… None of them ask if Rachio dropped your wifi signal. It’s an embarrassing problem they likely don’t/won’t address publicly.
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Don’t think this is the case. I’ve NEVER had to do anything to my Gen1’s, Gen2’s, or Gen3’s that I have on my own homes, family members homes, or friends that I’ve helped set up. If there is an outage, or power cycle of network gear, they all come right back up. Hell, I’ve even gone from a Netgear Orbi to a full Unifi pro-grade network in my home and both my Rachio units reconnected once I configured and powered up my new Unifi gear (same SSID’s and PW as previous Orbi). Zero interaction from my part on the Rachio units.
