Rachio 3rd Gen: Smart 4-Zone Sprinkler Controller, App Enabled Automated Water Scheduling, Alexa Compatible, DIY Simple & Fast Install

I just replaced an older Orbit model 27896 irrigation controller today with this Rachio 3 4-Zone Irrigation Controller (made 8/2022), and the entire process took less than 10 minutes, including most of the time spent removing the old unit and affixing the new. Here are my Pros and Cons: PROS: 1 - Unit is small and if installed indoors (like mine) it takes very little wall space. 2 - The Rachio iOS App is very easy and simple to setup and use. Has great features and allows for a lot of customizations, down to the irrigation nozzle type (dripper, bubbler, spray head, emitter, mister, etc...) 3 - Great weather integration based on your specified address, with customizable Rain, Wind & Freeze delays. 4 - Interfaces with & works seamlessly with the expensive Tempest Weather System by WeatherFlow (get Rachio sync code from Tempest support). 5 - Surprisingly HomeKit integration IS supported in the Rachio App and works great! (just write down and save you sync code) 6 - Zone Programming is a breeze & supports zone pictures for easy identification of zones as well as marking both zones and irrigation type on an aerial map. 7 - Supports WiFi in both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands (a lot more flexible than most 2.4 GHz only devices) - Mine connected at 5GHz and has amazing -50 bBm signal strength. CONS: 1 - No LCD display, just a 4-way button and sectional LED bar that is not very easy to read/identity the active zone on. You'll find yourself controlling it using the App 99% of the time due to this. 2 - Outdoor weatherized housing is sold separately (tho not very expensive at around $30) 3 - Faceplate is magnetic and while it attaches easily it does not do so very securely. 4 - Unlike the Orbit model 27896 I replaced, the Rachio 3 does not seem to have an internal/backup battery. 5 - Irrigation schedules need ability to just choose start & end months instead of exact dates, so that the system can operate on different schedules on an ongoing basis. For me the lack of LCD & battery as well as the months without dates are the biggest gripes, and I think this is where Rachio could improve, but aside from that, I am VERY pleased with my new Irrigation Controller.

We owned several smart sprinkler controllers before and hands down, this one takes the crown. Here’s the Pro and Con breakdown which hopefully helps with your decision: PROS: Smart and App controlled - the Rachio App is far superior and more logical and intuitive to use than the other apps that I have used Weather-based controller - this is what truly makes this smart - can also function with local-paired weather devices IoT interoperability and compatibility with the major home hubs: Apple Homekit, Alexa, and Google Home A simple design can be mounted indoors and outdoors (requires enclosure) Easy setup and stable wifi connection Each zone can be customized i.e. soil type, exposure to sun, water delivery type, etc, to name a few. CONS: The enclosure is not designed for outdoor requiring a separate enclosure The power adapter can be quite large when used outdoors and needs of enclosure that can fit both the controller and power adapter. Although the magnetic face is a cool easy on/off feature it can also easily come off unintentionally. Overall, the performance and interoperability of the Rachio controller is one of the better consumer smart controllers in the market.

I've had two homes with irrigation systems and they inevitably come with a Rain Bird controller. OK, let's upgrade to a wifi unit so I have a less clunky user interface and don't have to go outside to fidget with the controls. That's what I did at the first home. That simply enables you use your phone to look at your schedule, change it etc. At my next home, I went to replace the rain bird controller and realized: "hey, there are other sprinkler controllers" and did some research. Rachio seems to rate highly or the best and I can see why. The price of a Rachio system is consistently better than a Rain Bird. Both systems add cost the more watering stations there are in your system, but as far as I could tell the Rachio3 is about half the cost of an analogous Rain Bird per station. This actually made me nervous about buying it, since I don't like to skimp on things that you install in your home, and I worried that it was going to be a lower quality product. Well, that was wrong. Install is, as others have said, about a 15 minute job if you have a drill, hammmer, and a screwdriver. Wiring is very very simple for controllers. You have a common wire (which provides power) and then you have station/zone wires that get power from that common wire when the controller decides it's time to water. You take a photo of your old wiring for reference, remove the old controller, mount the Rachio 3, and then insert the wires into the analogous locations. This is not scary electrical work where you might get shocked, since you don't plug the unit in until you've inserted the common wire and the station wires. When you're done with that you plug the unit in and move on to the software part of the install on your phone. Software install also went smoothly for me. You need to start by creating a Rachio account on the app. The app does a good job of getting your wifi credentials into the system and I didn't seem to have to do that thing where you first log into the wifi network of the device and pass the credentials for your wifi network to it that way. Instead, I just had to be logged into my wifi on my phone, scan a bar code with it, be near the unit, and...it just kinda figured things out. After that, you tell the system about your zones/watering stations, the type of soil you're managing in each zone, etc. There are minimal controls on the unit itself. Controlling is done from your phone. I find the UI more intelligent than the Rain Bird system and easier to manage and understand. But the real coolness starts with the smartness of the system. The app gets your location and shares it with the system and gives you micro targeted forecasting for your location. It plugs into its proprietary weather network and understands how much water your yard is seeing from local weather, pretty much obviating the need for a water sensor. It will guide you through creating a smart watering program for your home, or, you can choose to simply replicate the schedule that you had in place before the install. All this means you can create a water saving program with minimal thinking on your part. It's pretty neat. Some minor gripes: 1. The unit is a bit bigger than you imagine it might be. 9.1” x 5.5” x 1.4” It took up a bit of space on my garage wall 2. The unit has a big bright blue LED that illuminates even when it's idle. You can turn it off or lower the intensity. This would be improved if you could put it in Cylon mode where a pulse moves from side to side across the LED and then it rebels against humanity.

Purchased the Rachio November 2024 which is 5 months ago. Rain and snow moved in about the time the unit arrived and temps were below freezing. So I had an excuse to put off installation. Instructions say easy install, just swap wires from your old controller to the Rachio, connect with wifi and you're ready to go. Well - I've purchased products in the past that said "easy", and it turned out to be a beach! So - it's March 2025 and haven't had moisture for a couple of months. Time to give installtion a go. I took pics of how the wires on the old box connected. Swapping the wires only took 15 minutes or so. Just be sure to take some pics of how the wires connected in the old box; VERY IMPORTANT! The hardest part was getting wifi to connect. I tried it about a dozen times with no luck! Thought this is going to be a mess! I kept trying, no luck. So I unistalled the app, then reinstalled it, putting in new information that's required, and it finally connected. Tested all the zones and everything works as it should. The app is an amazing piece of equipment. A lot of thought went into designing it. There's many options you can do while kicking back in your Lazyboy. Except for a little trouble getting the Rachio to connect to wifi, it really was an easy swap. I give it 5 stars and highly recommend it.

Really easy to wire and program. The big surprise was when I took the cover off to mount it, a placard that states "For Interior Use Only". Well that was a problem as I'd already cut the power cord off the previous unit! Would have been nice to know You can see from the photo, that I installed it on the exterior house wall under a patio cover. In this location it will be protected from direct rain, sun and it will not freeze. Been working perfectly for a month. I love how it checks the local weather and adjusts the schedule appropriately. I did not try to integrate it with Alexa but the phone app is super convenient and easy.

If you have an in-ground sprinkler system for your lawn, then you MUST have this controller. It checks the weather before it starts to water and will "skip" the day if there is rain, or if rain has been forecast, or if it rained the day before, or if the temperature is predicted to drop below freezing. It is very simple to swap out with whatever controller you have now. Took me about 10 minutes to swap it out. YOU MUST GET A GOOD WIFI SIGNAL WHEREVER THIS IS INSTALLED FOR IT TO WORK. The manufacturer is great if you need help. After several months, mine stopped working. I called the help line and they had me try a couple of different things to get it going again, but they didn't work. So they sent me a brand new one along with a box to send the old one back free of charge. It was outside the Amazon return period, but the manufacturer took care of it for free anyhow. It is also easy to program from the app on your phone. This is an amazing controller. I haven't had to do anything since I installed it. The old electric manual controller it replaced was a pain to program and every time we lost power it would lose the program and I would have to spend forever getting it set up again. NOT with this one however. The program is stored in your phone, so if you lose power, when the power comes back on it reboots and takes the program info from the phone. You will be super happy you switched to this sprinkler controller!

My Racho 2 that I have had for a number of years died on me, couldn't get it to do anything an after talking to support it was clear it died. I purchased a new Racho 3 and the setup of this unit compared to the Rachio 2 was easier. I really like the wire ports on the Rachio 3 compared to the Rachio 2. My Rachio 2 wire ports were more difficult to get the wire in and stay in. On the Rachio 3 they have a new port setup and putting the wires in and the wires staying in has worked very well. Setting up the new Rachio went easily but I wish there was a way to copy all settings from my existing controller to the new one. Could have been because my original controller was dead, but I would think the settings would be saved up to Rachio. While the Rachio 3 picked up my address from the Rachio 2 setup, I had to setup the zones and other settings. While all of that is easy, a way to copy over settings when upgrading a controller would be nice. Overall, I'm happy with the Rachio 3. It provides all the features I like from my original controller and works well. I can't imagine going back to the old days with the manual sprinkler controllers that were way too complex to figure out. I recommend Rachio if you are comfortable dong a DIY setup.

The Rachio disconnects from the WIFI all the time, which makes the unit totally useless when you need to use the app to control the irrigation. I contacted Rachio. They sent me a replacement unit and it had the same problem. I contacted them again and they simply blamed me for having weak WIFI outside even though I have a strong signal that I can measure with my phone standing next to it outside. Also, my pool controller is a few inches away from the Rachio and never disconnects from the WIFI. The frustrating thing with the unit is it won't be smart enough to reconnect on its own. Also the troubleshooting features on the app are totally wrong. For example, it asks which light section is lighting up when none of them are, leaving us with no option to proceed and having to guess one of the choices. The bottom line is this device is an example of bad designers not using the product they sell. If any of the guys at the company actually used their own system, they could see how bad it is in real life and work on it to make it better.

Easy to install. Excellent app. Water efficient since it's connected to the local weather network (no need for rain sensor).

I was scared to try to install it myself but once I followed instructions - it was not difficult. Had problem adding device but I called support and they were able to help right away. East install and setup

Physical install and wifi setup super easy, Zone setup, the app is a little opposite to how you think it would work , everything else has been great. Times schedules with the sunrise, temperatures, season, And the best part, I can test my zones with my phone! No more running back and forth. Works with home security system as well as its own app.

Have owned this for almost 2 years now and we are very pleased with the design, the look and how easy it is to program.

Remplacement d’un contrôleur d’une autre marque . Facile et rapide à changer