For those looking for an easier way to blow out their systems in the winter or maintenance throughout the year, I’ve revived the Winterizinator.com site that lets you turn on/off zones at random (Thanks to Varun Mehta for the original site years ago). Just enter your API Access Key available in the app.rachio.com user menu and click Go.
You’ll see all your zones and tap the button to turn on a zone, click another zone to switch to that zone or turn all zones off.
I hope to keep the site active until Rachio can at least add a ‘Skip to Next Zone’ button when it’s running a manual watering. Guess I could create my own AppleWatch app next. Lol
In short, visit https://app.rach.io/ and then click the little icon on the right (looks like a silhouette of a person) and one of the options is API Access Token.
I’m a bit cautious about services which claim that API key is not sent to the server, only to send it anyway at the press of the button.
Overall, nice to see a neat use of API functionality
P.S. @schaeferb, I understand that you may not be storing the key and that any key use during normal operation is done via scripting, but your claim that Api key is never sent to the server is misleading. Keep up the great work, cheers
@Gene I understand your concern and agree there should be a method at Rachio to reset your API token. Although, I’m not sure what someone would gain from having your token, other than to mess with you by turning your system on/off randomly or disabling scheduling.
Now that you mention it, I wonder about the security of how Amazon skill works, etc, where you actually authenticate with your user/password. Although maybe that was developed by Rachio. Or all those apps that integrate with Hue lighting also.
You are correct, that technically the key does make it to the server by page postbacks for persisting state between pages. In my defense the base site was as the original site was and I left his original statement there. I suppose it could control them through local client scripting, but I whipped the site up in about an hour to get prepped for closing my system this week. I was disappointed last year when the site had disappeared and it was difficult to close using just the app. I will add clarification to the statement to include that it is used for the duration of the session.
Yea, no worries. I don’t think anyone would really benefit from API key not being sent to the server, but it would help to switch the site to HTTPS by default so that API key is at least not being sent in the clear (not that anyone is likely to do it from a public network, but if it’s easy enough to get a free certificate from something like https://letsencrypt.org/, it would not hurt).
Frankly the only reason I even noticed the difference between site operation and the disclaimer was because I got curious how the client side scripting was implemented
Overall I would just change the disclaimer to mention that you don’t store the API key and that people should not use the site on the public network and you can leave everything else as is.
We can reset the API key on our end if someone starts spraying you on your way out to work in the mornings . Can’t help with the wifi situation- sounds like you’ll need a matching tin foil hat though.
This ‘conversation’ reminds me of the TV show My Favorite Martian, '63 - '66, staring Ray Walston as Uncle Martin (the Martian), including his ‘WiFi’ looking antennae that he could raise and lower from his head.
Would nicely match the tin foil undies that Gene wears.
And McKynzee probably isn’t aware of this amazingly funny TV show back in the 60s.
Very cool, thanks. Looks like it will eliminate the couple of seconds of not having a zone on when winterizing. I’ll try it next week. I would love to see a watch app that maybe just does the same thing with a swipe left and right.
Hello @schaeferb, I am curious what this really does as it is not clear to me. Does it basically do a “Quick Run” on each zone for a small time period to allow each zone to get blown out with a resting period of time for the compressor to recharge between each zone? I manually did this type of thing just with Quick Run before last winter, but disconnected the hose while the compressor was recharging (otherwise, it would never recharge . . . maybe because I have so many king drains that it leaked out before enough pressure existed to close those drains).
This displays all the zones in a quick list. You turn each zone on/off individually. There is no timer involved at all, except the zone will turn off after an hour I believe. You can switch to another zone by simply clicking on the new zone. This turns off the current zone and on the new zone. Great for blowing lines as you can just quickly swap between zones in any order and not be restricted to the Rachio app functionality.
There is no resting period, as I always use a larger rental compressor that can accommodate blowing without needing to build pressure.
