Discontinued Rachio WiFi Smart Lawn Sprinkler Controller, 8-Zone 2nd Generation, Alexa Compatible with Rain, Freeze and Wind Skip (8ZULW-B)
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Availability:
Only 1 left in stock, order soon!
Arrives
Aug 2 – Aug 4
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Size: 8 Zone
Features
- Avoid watering in the rain. Exclusive weather intelligence automatically skips unnecessary watering with features like rain skip, wind skip, freeze skip, and more.
- Control from anywhere with the easy-to-use app. Run sprinklers, view upcoming schedules, and observe your estimated outdoor water usage.
- Experience fast DIY installation. Rachio Smart sprinkler controllers replace 99% of existing sprinkler controllers. Install in 30 minutes or less with no special tools needed. Our in-app installation tutorial helps you get online and watering in no time!
- Deliver all the water your plants need; no more, No less. Rachio creates tailored Smart schedules based on the specific needs of your lawn, including plant type, soil type, sun exposure, and more.
- Power source type: Corded Electric. No Hub Required for Voice Control
Description
Take the guesswork out of watering with a Rachio Smart Sprinkler Controller. The easy-to-use mobile app lets you manage your sprinklers without running back and forth to the controller, while automatic weather adjustments mean no more watering in the rain. Get peace of mind - Rachio knows just how much water your yard needs. Control your sprinklers using a smartphone or with category-leading smart home integrations, including Amazon Alexa and more. Master Valve-Compatible with master valve, pump relay, or indexing valve. Wi- Fi Connection - Wi-Fi (2.4GHz) required. Supports dedicated 2.4GHz and dual- band networks. Cannot operate on 5 GHz only networks. Sensors Rain Sensor - Wired & Wireless Normally Closed (NC) sensors, Soil Sensor - Wired & Wireless Normally Closed (NC) sensors, Wired Flow Sensors
Color: White
Brand: Rachio
Product Dimensions: 9.25"L x 1.5"W x 5.5"H
Material: Plastic
Item Weight: 2.5 Pounds
Brand Name: Rachio
UPC: 680140538825 683203862530 702916100071 702916219100
Warranty Description: 2 year limited
Global Trade Identification Number: 25, 78
Manufacturer: Rachio
Part Number: 8ZULW-B
Model: 8ZULW-B
Unit Count: 1.0 Count
Item Type Name: Smart Sprinkler Controller
Display Type: LED or LCD
Smart Home Compatibility: Smart Home Compatible
Color: White
Material Type: Plastic
Item Dimensions L x W x H: 9.25"L x 1.5"W x 5.5"H
Item Weight: 2.5 Pounds
Frequently asked questions
If you place your order now, the estimated arrival date for this product is:
Aug 2 – Aug 4
Yes, absolutely! You may return this product for a full refund within 30 days of receiving it.
To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.
View our full returns policy here.
To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.
View our full returns policy here.
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Top Amazon Reviews
I am not prone to writing reviews. I buy something and seldom feel compelled to spend time/effort to do this. The Rachio is a product that has driven me to write a review because it is exceptionally impressive and performs well beyond the level of many competing units. I will assume that anyone reading this knows what the Rachio is and therefore will not dwell on describing its purpose. I want to explain what has made it stand out in my case. Features: Unbelievable. The Rachio somehow manages to be extremely easy to operate for a basic user while being unbelievably capable of fine-tuning for specific needs and advanced users. All of the adjustments are done through a very user friendly and highly polished app that provides clear descriptions and in depth detail (including illustrations) to help the user know exactly what setting is most appropriate for his/her application (eg. what is the right ground slope setting, sun exposure, sprinkler head types, plant types, etc.). The system allows one to adjust for a (potentially) overwhelming number of variables for each sprinkler zone to ensure that it not only saves water BUT FAR MORE EFFECTIVELY THAN A STANDARD TIMER OR USER COULD HOPE FOR --- encourages healthy/thriving lawns and plants. This is not just about saving water and money (though it does this exceptionally well), but making the yard so much more healthy than any other system I've been around while doing it all with nearly NO EFFORT on the user end of things. There is a genuine science behind a healthy yard related to the irrigation element and to apply this science at the level Rachio provides would be nearly impossible any other way and frankly with nearly any other system (including most other "smart" systems). Now, I said "potentially" overwhelming in mentioning setting options and "nearly" no effort earlier. This is because there might be some initial user effort to get things "ideal". However, compared to the seemingly unparalleled results that the Rachio can provide, if it is needed, the extra effort getting into the more advanced settings is well worth it and typically completely manageable thanks in large part to the next item of business. Company/support: I mentioned that the app provides incredibly accessible directions for basic setup. Optimizing the results for my yard involved some more advanced adjustments (which the Rachio allows for to an extent that a botanist/agricultural scientist can have a field day). For someone who does need to play with these "advanced" setting and/or who is not a botanist/agricultural scientist, these settings might appear confusing and even intimidating. Low and behold in all of the expected areas -and as the user desires- the app links to additional and very clear details that are truly brilliant in regard to how they are put forward on the support site. If that is not enough, the support community that is tied to all of it is extremely active with honest to goodness experts actively and frequently running about in the forum to answer questions and help nearly everyone out within a very short time. It is frankly unbelievable that this level of support, integration, AND knowledge exists. It is frightening to consider how great things could be if other U.S. businesses approached the world this way. It's only the surface of what I am talking about but certainly with Rachio, the user is NOT getting assistance from someone who is hard to understand (or who has a hard time understanding the customer) and who is clearly reading from a pre-scripted FAQ/dialogue tree. I have had to use restraint to avoid going into the particulars of just how well the system works, how polished it is, and precisely what all of these features are that make the Rachio so great. However, there are SO MANY that if I were to attempt to define and detail it all, the result would likely be a review that would be potentially off-putting at worse or overwhelming at best for most readers (probably already there). I will leave it to the potential owner to cherry pick and find the particulars from Rachio. So it is that I force my detail impulses to stand back. Extra details could get in the way of the main message. If you are interested in something like it, YES, you ABSOLUTELY should benefit from becoming a RACHIO OWNER. It is an exceptional product backed by an exceptional company!
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Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2016 by Media Guy
Being able to run individual zones by telling Alexa (Amazon Echo) to do so seemed like just a novelty at first, but after spending several hours repairing drippers and replacing a few old sprinkler heads, I was happy to be able to manually run single zones for 3 to 5 minutes just by using my voice. "Alexa, start Rachio." "Rachio is ready. What would you like me to do?" "Run Zone 7 for 4 minutes." "Ok, running Zone 7 for 4 minutes." Although the Rachio has a super sophisticated watering system that automatically checks weather maps and soil conditions for our area via Wifi, it's nice that it's so easy to run single zones just by talking to Alexa. After using an old timer for 14 years and having to do this by pushing buttons on the actual timer, (and then sometimes it wouldn't work right) it's a breath of fresh air to have the whole system so automated. When was the last time I felt pampered by a sprinkler timer? Just prior to purchasing this 8 zone Rachio, I bought an Orbitz B-hyve timer. It was great when it worked, but after their servers were down for an hour one night, the whole thing stopped working for a couple days (without telling me) and it took almost an hour on the phone with with Tech Support and having to reboot the whole system, including removing the battery and reinstalling to get it going again. And then it failed again. I returned it and purchased this one instead. The Rachio was simple to set up. First, I disconnected the wires from my old timer and connected them to the Rachio. That was simple and straightforward, going from the old to the new. I plugged it into the electrical outlet and I downloaded the app for my iPhone and iPad (It says iPhone only, but works perfectly on my iPad) and set it up using the iPad. The Rachio searched for my Wifi network, found it, and asked me to type in my network password. It connected right away. That was the last thing I had to do with the timer itself. The app walked me through the rest. No punching buttons or turning dials on a timer. I sat on my familyroom sofa and did the set-up. The more info you enter about your soil type, incline of the terrain, types of sprinklers or drippers and different planting areas, the more accurate it will be about watering times. You can do fixed days or let the app figure out how often and how long to water. I started off just telling it to water every other day on odd numbered days and specifying the amount of time for each zone. Their system recently sent me an email telling me they made a seasonal adjustment, upping the watering time by several minutes. It's been super hot and dry here. How cool is that? I love that it lets me know, by email, what it's doing and any changes it makes. It lets me know when a watering cycle has started, when it's complete and the total watering time across all zones. I still can override it if I want, but even being the control freak that I am, I'm coming to trust this thing. The app interface is pretty easy to use. I wouldn't say it's super intuitive, and I did have to ask a few things on their community forum, but now that I know where everything is, it's easy to use. There's even a place to take photos of your different watering zones and it automatically uploads them to the app without you having to upload them yourself. Since my descriptions of each zone aren't always that clear, it's nice to see a photo of the zone I'm checking. I haven't had to call Tech Support yet because the questions I had were answered on the forum. (It's moderated and there always seems to be someone hanging around there.) We're watering 6 zones with 1 more still to be set up. There was one zone that we weren't using just because turning it on and off to check sprinklers to fix the broken ones with the old system was such a pain. It was easier to procrastinate and hand water that zone. With this system and Alexa, I had the sprinklers replaced and everything up and running in about 15 minutes, not counting the trip to the hardware store to buy the new sprinkler heads. (I know, not a lot of logic in spending hours over the last few years hand watering to avoid fighting with a crotchety old timer.) So I love this thing. It's more like a cool technology toy than a piece of necessary equipment to keep our yard looking nice. I like that everything can be done in the cloud once I tell it what we're dealing with, and I don't have to do a thing unless I want to. And it gets points for playing nice with Alexa! I do have to admit that the ability to use the Echo was a factor in my purchasing decision.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2016 by PT Cruiser
I've only had this a few days (watering cycles) but I'm very impressed with everything so far. It does seem that you get what you pay for. The installation was easy. I had absolutely not problems connecting the app to the controller and then to my home network. The signal strength to my router was average. I would say that the functionality of the controller is so-so, you can setup and run zones from the controller but all the good stuff in in the app and it makes setup and configuration very easy. I've had other hardware that depended on an app to configure it and been disappointed with the app (I'm looking at you Linksys) but the Rachio app is outstanding. You can set schedules, start/stop zones, and even check the current weather. If you use the automatic scheduling feature you can look several months into the future to get an idea of when and how often watering will occur. It's smart enough to know that here in Florida I don't need to water as often in Winter but forecasts that I will during Summer. The app allows you to configure each zone based on vegetation, soil type, amount of sun it receives, the type of sprinkler heads used, and the slope. There are advanced parameters to allow you to set much more in-depth configurations. The app provides information about the last time it watered a zone and the next time it is planned to be watered. It also provides information about how much water, in gallons, that have been used and saved but without a flow meter or being very precise in the advanced configurations I don't see how this can be very accurate, but it is a nice touch and does provide at least some knowledge of your water use. You could probably read your water meter before and after to get an idea of how accurate it is and then make some tweaks to the app to get it closer. I think the thing I like most is that when I'm working on sprinkler heads I can start/stop the zone I'm working on standing next to the head that I testing. No more starting a zone and then having to run thru the sprinklers to get to the head I'm working on. Very convenient. I cannot speak (yet) to it's ability to monitor rainfall in the area and shift watering schedules but I will know better once warmer weather returns and I'll re-post to my review. Anyway, I feel comfortable recommending it and I don't think you'll be disappointed.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2016 by Capt Coconut
I am an Australian customer. I purchased my Rachio Gen 2 approximately one year ago. I am going to outline my experience with the product and also my service experience: The Product. The Rachio Gen2 (8 Station) is a wonderful product. It is very easy to install and it is truly Smart. It configures itself for optimal performance, based on the inputs one provides - soil type, plant type, sun, shade, etc. I could have bought a locally supplied controller however some of those brands wanted an annual subscription fee in order to incorporate weather data, which enables to controller to skip watering when it rains, when it's too windy or the ground is saturated, etc. With those local brands, I was ostensibly getting a "Dumb" controller, unless I coughed up an additional $60 p.a. Basically, they wanted me to pay for data which is freely provided by the Bureau of Meteorology and other weather sources. No way! With Weather Intelligence Plus®, Rachio can aggregate 270,000 personal and commercial weather stations worldwide, for extreme accuracy. If you prefer, you can also choose the weather station you want. If it were to go down, Rachio will automatically find and connect to the next nearest and available weather station; that's very cool! The other thing that I liked when researching Rachio, was that the company appeared to genuinely "love" its product. It had a significant knowledge base and an online forum, with very active and supportive customers. People really like their gardens and they really Rachio! So I bought a Gen 2 and fired it up. It was fantastic. It has a great phone App, which offers numerous Smart watering features that I can easily control, override. My Rachio Gen 2 is happy to either do everything for me or allow me full manual control over my watering, and every shade in between. Being a Smart controller, it can be accessed anywhere in the world where there is either a wifi connection or cellular phone access. In February this year, during our hot Australian summer, we travelled to Northern India and then Vietnam. we were away for approximately one month. I had left the garden watering, to Rachio. As it hit 44 C. in Melbourne, while we were away, I has able to allay my paranoia by running some additional, non-scheduled watering from India and Vietnam. It was comforting to get an SMS back from my controller once they started and had completed. Please see the images of the pumpkin plant blocking our gate, on our return home! The Rachio is everything the company claims it to be; it's excellent and it's fun! My brother subsequently bought a Gen 2 as well for his farm and he is delighted with it. After-sales Service. Rachio provides first-class service! My background: I am a Director of an agricultural machinery company. Our point of differentiation is our exceptional pre-sales and after-sales service. We don't just play lip-service to this: we are fully committed to providing great service and building long relationships with our customers. Similarly, Rachio doesn't just talk the talk: it walks the walk. My experience with Rachio customer service follows: I recently attempted to activate terminals 7 & 8 of my Gen 2 controller. These hadn't been used before and I had some new vegetable beds to water. They did not work. The App indicated that they should be working but the weren't. Having a background in IT, I had experience in fault finding and went about A-B testing by connecting different solenoids to different controller terminals. I was able to rule out faulty solenoids. I subsequently emailed Rachio Support, which responded *promptly and courteously*. There is a significant time difference between the USA and Australia however depending on what time I sent emails, there was either a response that day or first thing, the next morning. To summarize my experience: 1. I was asked to try a potential but it failed. 2. The Support person, Skyler, then advised that he would send me a new controller straight away. 3. I advised Skyler that I wanted to do one more test, before he sent it. That subsequent test failed too. 4. I advised Skyler of this failure and provided delivery details. He responded quickly and said the new unit was on the way. 5. The replacement controller arrived in 4 DAYS!!!! That's from Colorado (I believe) to Melbourne, Australia in 4 days, free of charge! This was an unbelievably good turnaround. 6. The problem with zones 7 & 8 persisted with the new controller. (The fault appeared to have been copied over). 7. A senior technician, Jared, contacted me **without my having to ask**. He was very keen to sort out the problem. 8. He suggested a factory reset and voila! The new unit worked and so did the original controller once it was reset. At no stage did I think I was a burden... indeed - I was "thanked" on numerous occasions for assisting them with the diagnosis. In the end, I believe the problem was a small glitch in an earlier version of the firmware. The company hadn't seen it before, hence its taking a few days to sort it out. I reiterate - from timely communication, diagnosis to delivery half way around the world in 4 days of a replacement controller, Rachio's customer service was exceptional. I thoroughly recommend this company and its products to everyone on the planet. Suggestions for improvement? Rachio may have attended to this already but if not, I would recommend that the required power supply, depending on your country, is nominated and supplied at the time of the order. I had to purchase a local 230V. power supply (AUD $20) as my original unit came with a 110V P/S. It would just make a great product a little bit better and besides, this product deserves to be sold worldwide, in large volumes because it's so good! Disclosure: I've written this superlative review for no other reason than those contained in it. Buy with confidence.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2018 Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2018 by muddy
This review is based on 1 day of service but includes installation and setup. First an opinion I have regarding some of the negative reviews of this and other products. If your negative is based on getting a dud, that can happen on anything and even if going to a brick and mortar store. There is probably more inconvenience associated with getting a dud from an online purchase due to the hassle (real and perceived) of returning the item. The instruction booklet that comes with the device is relatively limited but provides enough information for most anyone to get the job done. If you need more detail, you might ask yourself why you thought you could change out the controller on your own in the first place. The suggestion to photograph the wiring is sound and just replaces the old method of writing down numbers and colors. I opted for using my own anchors and screws for mounting the device as I was too lazy to get a drill and instead used the "self threading" style wall anchor. This was mounted into drywall inside my garage. Re-attaching the wires was simple, particularly with referencing the photos. There is an oddity with establishing an account in that it appears that you must register through the downloaded app as I could not find any way to do so via the website on my PC. You can log in on the PC, but not register an account. Once registered via the app and power is applied on the device connection and syncing of the device was fairly quick and painless. You will need your wifi password handy to put the controller on your home network. Once this is done, the app walks you through defining each zone. I did this activity with my wife, allowing her to weigh in on the various criteria such as sprinkler head type, soil condition, sunlight exposure, slope and what it is your watering. One tip, you may wish to disable or extend the screen timeout feature on your phone/tablet as having the screen go blank was annoying. Zones can be identified by number, description of your yard or both. Just make sure the description is understood by all interested parties in your household :-). After the zones are defined, it's time to set up a schedule. I paused to install the app on my wife's phone and let her take over from here. This process was pretty intuitive and you can adjust the watering times that are recommended by the system as you see fit. Once complete, my wife I tested manually starting/stopping a zone as well as manually triggering a watering schedule. She was very comfortable doing these activities and was generally pleased and impressed with the controller. It was then that I enabled the Rachio skill on the Amazon Echo and asked Alexa to start zone 1 for 2 minutes as a test. At this point my wife was very impressed with the controller and all of its connectivity capabilities. I'm looking forward to seeing how effectively we save water by use of the climate management features.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2016 by R. Vitale
Setup instructions leave a little to be desired. I suppose there are online links and videos about it but if you are just using the booklet that comes with it, it leaves a lot to be desired. I don't like the connectors even a little bit. I considered giving it less than 4 stars because of that but since this is most likely a one-time only exercise, I left it at 4 stars. I have hooked up a lot of electronics with wires similar to these and this is by far that most frustrating connectors I have ever seen. Sometimes I had to push the tab in first. Sometimes I didn't. Sometimes the connector grabbed the wire and sometimes it didn't. Would it be so hard for Rachio to have screw-down connectors like every other thermostat and irrigation controller out there on the market? Whomever designed those crazy connectors needs to be fired. Once I got the wires in, I couldn't get the sprinklers to turn on. My system has a master valve. How do I know that? Because after 30 minutes of checking every connector multiple times, I realized that the wire labeled "M" on the old RainBird controller that I connected to the "M" connector on this new controller was for the "M"aster Valve. I had it hooked up right all along, but I didn't tell the app that I had a master valve. I changed the setting in the app and the zones turned on and off just fine. This is just another example where Rachio could improve the installation instructions. When I installed a new WiFi enabled thermostat, it gave me a great online set of instructions based on the old thermostat I was replacing. It wouldn't be that hard for Rachio to do that for the most common irrigation controllers. I have had it installed for a few days now. I like the way you enter the soil type (which you can get from a government website), slope, vegetation type, and so on. I chose which weather station I wanted to use and it has been calculating and recalculating a watering schedule for me. I will watch it and adjust it if necessary. It seems to have set some extremely long watering times - about 1 hour per zone. We have only been in this house for about a month but I had each zone running 10 minutes each every other day and it greened up the yard nicely. There are plenty of graphs and charts for a gadget geek like me. I think this will have been a great investment if it ends up saving water. Water isn't cheap here in this part of Texas. 05/18/17 update: I thought those terrible connectors was just a one time installation issue. I wondered why some of my grass and plants were turning brown. I went to the app to turn a zone on to see if the spray looked good. Nothing happened. The app said it was watering but it wasn't. Tried another zone. Same thing. Went to try turning on a zone at the controller and noticed that my master valve wire had come loose from the connector. I'm guessing I missed 2 watering cycles. They start at 1:00 AM so I assumed they had come on because I had the watering report. Now I will periodically test them by turning them on manually. Seriously, Rachio - change those connectors. Annoying the daylights out of your customers to save a few cents is not a good business model.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2017 by G. Wagner
08/10/16 Update: I had to call customer support to assist with an issue that we quickly determined was no fault of the Rachio controller. One zone of my six was not working. I contacted a local sprinkler repair company and they came out and stated I needed a new valve. After replacing the valve the zone was still not working. The repair company stated it was a problem with the controller. When I called customer support there was no wait time on hold. I spoke with Philip who immediately started providing options to try. One thing Philip said was ensure the valve screws are turned to the On position. I told the installer that and he rolled his eyes and said of course they are turned on. He double checked and turned out the valve was turned OFF. What a bone head! I was glad to get the problem resolved. Goes to show you even the "professional installer" needs help sometimes! Thank you Philip!! Summary: This product is incredible. Extremely easy to setup and the app is so intuitive and very well thought out there is nothing about this I would change. Please read below for my detailed review. While I am very handy and familiar with home maintenance I have never installed a sprinkler control box. If it were not for so many reviews stating how easy it is to install and setup this product I would have paid a professional to do the work. A good tip to remember is before removing the wires from your current sprinkler control take a picture with your phone so you know which wire goes to each zone. Don't waste time writing down the wire numbers or labeling the wires. Total time for the complete installation was about 20 minutes. Simply remove your old box plug the zone wires in and the plug the power in. Open the app on your phone and follow the prompts. It is clear the team that designed this thought out every step as it walks you through one of the easiest setup processes I have ever gone through. The system has various options to do automatic schedules based on the weather forecast. I follow the weather closely and have a rain gauge at my home so chose the manual option and set the schedule myself. That is of the primary reasons I purchased this, if I have it scheduled to run and see that rain is forecasted I can just open the app and cancel the next watering period. Another feature I have found very helpful is quick access to turn on any zone for a specified period. Anyone who owns a irrigation system knows you must periodically check the sprinkler heads and ensure they are spraying where they should be. When people walk over them or a lawnmower goes over several times they need adjusting. In the past I would have to go back and forth from my garage to the yard and turn each zone on, now I just open the app. Finally, sometimes I am a bit skeptical about a product that gets so many outstanding reviews and I wonder if they are real or not. I can tell you with 100% certainty everyone is correct and this is an AMAZING product. I still can't believe how easy it was to install and love every aspect of it! If it were possible to give more than 5 Stars I would give this 10 Stars.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2016 by VulcanFire
I chose this controller based on the many positive reviews and I am not disappointed. This is a fantastic controller. Although the quick start guide was bare bones, their website has an incredible wealth of information on installation, setup and use of the controller. I have 24 zones, so I had to buy an 8 zone and a 16 zone. Jump to the bottom of my review for some limitations, then pluses you should consider. My Situation My only problems installing were caused by the fact that my old controller was installed way out on the other side of my property and Rachio controllers, being Wi-Fi, need to be close to your router to get a strong signal. That meant we had to re-route our wires from the back yard to the house. Unfortunately, the 5 wires ran along a cement border around my massive clump of bamboo and over the years the bamboo had grown over the wires and they could not be removed. They had to be cut, which meant we lost all possibility of knowing which individual wire out of 35 (being 18-7 wire) went with what valve. I did know which valves were in each of my 6 valve boxes, which made it easier. It was actually pretty straight-forward to figure it out. We just picked 3 cables and wired 1 to the 8 station and 2 to the 16 station controller. Then I went outside and just used the remote mode to manually run each station and wrote down what physical zone it watered (or not, since there are 11 wires not used) then I just labelled each of those wires as to what order I wanted them to finally be in. After that we took out the 2 bundles from the 16 station and wired in the remaining 2 bundles and repeated the process. I was really lucky that my back yard has 8 zones and the front yard has 16 zones, because you can't split a bundle between controllers. It is nice that there are 2 common connectors for each set of 8 connectors. Limitations 1. The Rachio needs to be close enough to get a strong signal from your router. I didn't play around with this. I just had my helper drill through my house wall into my living room where my router is and install them behind the window drapes, right next to an outlet. 2. The transformer to step down the voltage to 12v is separate and plugs directly into an outlet. The cord is 6 feet long. 3. There are only two sizes for this controller, 8- and 16-zones. The work-around for this is that it is easy to access multiple controllers from the app on your phone. 4. You can't split your bundles of wire between controllers without using a "relay" due to the common wire needing to be split between the controllers. That seems like it might be a problem for those who have more than 24 zones or lots of cables with few wires being used in each. For that, you should splice some of those together so that you have an 18-7 wire all connected to 6 of your zones and then connect that to one of your controllers. 5. The Rachio is designed to be a "smart" controller. It allows you to describe each zone as to slope, soil type, sun exposure, type of plants, type of head, etc. The limitation here is that they have a limited number of soil types and irrigation heads. I water some zones that only have pots. There is no setting for that. I have several zones where I replaced the top 6-8 inches of clayey soil with high-quality soil mixes. There is no setting for that. The part where you describe your nozzles does not include drip and has a bunch of nozzles to choose from that may or may not actually represent any of your actual nozzles so you might need to add custom nozzles. To do that, you need to know your PSI and use the specifications for your nozzles or whatever it is you are using to calculate your inches/hour. I decided to use my Rachio as a "dumb" controller and just water based upon the number of minutes I want each zone to water and on what days. This is not a serious limitation, since I hadn't really wanted to give up my control anyway. Pluses You can set it to not water when it is raining and it uses GPS to decide, based upon the weather for your location. You can also add a rain sensor for more accurate info on rain. There are other sensors you can add for soil condition, etc. You can set it to water 1/2 of the amount for each station, then run again with the other half to reduce any runoff. The great thing about this controller is that it is Wi-Fi and can be controlled from your phone anywhere your phone has a signal. That means that I can water my plants any time I see it is excessively hot, including being able to only water the zones that are in full sun, or any combination for whatever length of time I want then just start run and I'm done. It also means I NEVER have to run back and forth between my controller and my zones to test the heads again! That is revolutionary!
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Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2017 by ELOMH