Hi all
Has somebody used it in Spain?
I want to buy Rachio but I’m not sure if it is going to work or not.
thanks!
Hi,
Should work when you take care to get a 24V AC power supply, not DC! I got one via the dutch type of ebay and it works over here perfect! As it is internet based should work in Spain also i think. Weatherforecast etc works fine for my location.
Take notice of the radio frequency, it might nog be allowed in Spain. I have no problems so far but live on a rural place, not in a city.
Worth the effort of getting one over to Europe!
Geert
Thanks Geho!!!
I’m ging to buy one and try 
I brought one to the UK and installed it earlier this year, and it works super.
Depending on your plan, you will need to purchase a few extra bits to have a truly automated setup. As Geho states, you’ll need a 24V AC PSU which are easy to find on ebay, Amazon, or your local friendly electric wholesaler. I actually used a 24V AC bell transformer located in the fuse box.
On top of that, you might consider a valve box to control the independent zones. I’m using two of the Antelco eZyvalve units for eight zones in my garden, and they work great.
And if you need irrigation pipes and drippers, take a look at the Antelco porous pipes and accessories. Happy to provide you with advice through this forum if you need any.
Good luck with your irrigation!
Hi everyone. I’m about to buy a Rachio 3 for my garden in Madrid. There’s some discussion on some other thread about how the weather forecast, seasonal shift and flex monthly schedules work outside of the US. Can any of you please confirm if the weather forecast, and hence the features that depend on it, work in Spain? Thanks!
Please see below the full email I received from Rachio Support in May 2019 …
If anything has since changed, somebody please let me know!
Matthew Santiago (Rachio)
May 31, 12:01 PM CDT
Hi Peter ,
Thanks for reaching out to Rachio Support.
Our Rachio controller, while not designed to be used outside of the US and Canada, can be used in some countries internationally. As long as the location that you wish to install the device has available National Weather Stations to connect with the Rachio, you’ll be able to use most of the smart features. There are instances where there has been no available data or weather stations. So you may want to do some research first.
In addition, Rachio does not have historical weather data for any countries outside of the U.S. and Canada. This means you won’t be able to utilize our Seasonal Shift feature.
In terms of ordering a Rachio, we do ship our controller internationally via Amazon.com! You’ll want to make sure that you are able to get international shipments to your particular country.
The app is able to control two devices regardless of distance, and you can set their locations separately.
Let me know if you have any further questions and I will be happy to assist you further.
Best,
Matthew
Matthew
Customer Advocate
Keeping lawns green since 2018
Rachio Support Hours
8 a.m. - 5 p.m. MST
Monday - Sunday
Hi all,
I bought a system and “simulated” setting it up in Mojacar, southern Spain. I set the GPS location and a local PWS. I experimented with selecting different settings in each zone, to understand the various effects of what different amounts of sun, different root depths, and other parameters would have on the timings for zones.
I have sent the Controller to Spain now, and the local team have installed it. I decided to reset the setup once I found out better details about the actual local soil type and roots depth, but now it will not calculate the Flex Daily schedule. It suggested ZERO seconds. All I could do was manually set it to maybe 3 mins.
I was on to support and they have been unable to assist and basically now say that since it’s installed in Spain, it will not work !!!
The main issue I now have is that by setting it to 3 mins, it watered last night but never increased the soil moisture %. That cannot be correct, no matter what. Not only that, but it wants to water the same zones again tonight !!!. There was rainstorms last month, and the zones all filled to 100% - so I know it all worked - and worked from our own PWS. Our own PWS is sucessfully updating to Weather Underground.
Maybe @franz, I hope that you can help me please. I am getting desparate. Maybe my setup needs a giant Ctrl-Alt-Del in the background, but something has gone seriously screwey
Just a quick update
Support have been looking at my system and have seen issues caused by us being international users and obviously not having the entire subset of data that’s available to US users, so there is no immediate fix coming any time soon.
However, I just thought of a fudge.
I looked in Weather Underground for a location in the US with weather similar to Mojacar at present, and I found Austin in Texas. I reset my location to Congress Ave in Austin and selected a PWS close by, I created my schedules which calculated timings for my zones, and I then changed my location back to Mojacar.
I ran all zones last night and they have all had soil moisture levels calculated, so my fudge is looking good so far.
Hi! I have a Rachio 3 in Madrid and having issues with weather data not being actually used by tue Rachio. Did this workaround of yours work? Is it still working? Thanks!
Hi there,
Once I got the system to initially calculate things (after fudging the location) yes, it appears to be working perfectly.
The only thing I did notice is that it did not calculate the duration of watering needed to fill the zone to 100%. So 10 mins is filling to about 65%, so I would possibly need to increase the duration to about 17 mins to water the zones to 100% for each cycle.
That sounds good. Do you think it would work if I changed the location of my current setup Rachio from Madrid to the US, let it calculate and then change it back to Madrid? This would be better si that I dont have to configure all the zones again. Thanks!
Well, I’ll reply myself: I did just that, I changed the location to Medford, Oregon (similar weather to Madrid), the system finally calculated the soil moisture for each zone, and then I switched the location back to Madrid. Initially the soil moisture levels seemed right (different percentages etc…) but when I checked the watering duration for my flex daily schedule, most of them were way too high, so I manuallt adjusted them to a more reasonable thing, and now the moisture levels for every zone are at 110%… Not sure if this is right… any comments?
So what I found is that it will not calculate the amount of water needed to fill a zone to 100%. So you need to manually set the duration. So reduce it by a few minutes until it’s calculating the percentage after a fill to around 80-90%.
I’ve added a system into an urbanization in Mojacar. After a lot of assistance from Richard, we’re close to having the system working as we hoped. We installed our own PWS to get precise weather data.
We had gardeners who “guessed” the required watering. We had Rainbird controllers which watered for 20 mins at regular intervals - at lest once weekly during winter and spring, so it still watered as it poured rain in March and April.
Hi all,
I just thought that I would share an update for anyone in Europe who is thinking of buying a Rachio controller. We bought our rachio for a large urbanization with over 4,000m2 of gardens, which has a full 16 zones in operation. We are using Flex Daily.
I arrived in Spain at the beginning of July, for the first time in 18 months, to find many areas of scorched dry grass. But the big problem was that the zones had not been accurately measured and the main issue was that the the water flow had been guessed, since the gardener would not co-operate with me.
So I have to say that once the these accurate parameters have fed into our system, it’s been perfect. The gardener had to make a few adjustments to some sprinklers, but just to dial in some dry patches within some zones.
We have saved several thousand Euro so far, since our installation began last February. But it is so important to configure the system with the correct parameters, or you’ll have a disfunctional system.
So Rachio’s work in Europe. You need to manually configure the duration of watering, and decide yourself as to how full you want zones to be filled when it waters. The system uses our PWS to add rainfall correctly, or has blocked watering when it expected to water. Given our water usage, we could justify the purchase of a PWS in addition to the Rachio unit.
And as for the PSU, all irrigation PSU’s are 24vac, so you can easily buy one on Amazon
It’s been a long journey for you but really impressed with your perseverance as well as your results! Well done! I wonder if Rachio will get behind your findings and start supporting users in Europe a little more?
It really is such a fantastic product. If only they could put everything I (and others) have learned into setup guides.
It really is so much a case of Garbage In, Garbage Out, but if you put the time into setting parameters honestly, it can do an incredible job.
In one sense, I was under massive pressure to deliver. We had turned our backs on the old controllers, amalgamating 4 separate units into one, so there was really no going back.
We will possibly buy a second unit to keep as a spare standby. We’ve more than saved the cost of one in our savings to date. Getting a spare unit in a hurry is the only real downside.