The Rachio 3 Smart WiFi Lawn Sprinkler Controller
I recently changed over to the Rachio v3 Smart Lawn Sprinkler as this latest version has an inline water monitor solution that will be available during the Summer 2018.
The Rachio V3 and previous V2 have features similar to that of other devices on the market – Mobile App, Cloud/Internet Controller and smart features like weather monitoring and watering controlling,
The one additional feature I felt separated it from the other device I tested was that you didn’t need the app to run a zone or test something. You could configure it right on the device simply arrow-over to the Zone you want to Light Up and then hit the start and you good.
Connection and Wires
The device uses push-in wire connections and I wish the industry would stop it with these spring loaded pressure connections because they don’t always feel latched. When working in any tight space areas the wires can pull and disconnect or stress the spring. ( Looking at you EcoBee 3 and EcoBee 3 Lite).
The 24v Power adapter is a wall wart and requires a right angle plug on the Controller side – because I have to run an extension low voltage line its also very tight in the wiring box.
Set Up / Configuration
The App set up and connections are similar to many of the devices out now – get the app on your phone, connect to the device send over your WiFi Settings and reconnect to your home network. It was quick and had less friction that the other devices I set up recently.
It asked about the zones detected, soil and type of areas it was watering and it also had a “Water Hammer” setting to handle the bang/smack and rattle that can happen when opening these sprinkler valves.
Network Ports and Details
The Rachio V3 doesn’t broadcast a whole lot of data and it reaches out to the internet a number of times. It also doesn’t have any open web servers on it that are easily connected to. I saw Easily Connected to because after a Port Scan I found that 443 (SSL) was open however I couldn’t just get to it with a browser. Chrome prompted notification about an error on certificate however the Rachio quickly dropped the connection and Chrome and Edge went to error site didn’t respond messages. Which is a good step forward compared to the Blossom device.
Conclusion
I have not yet completed a full month of allowing the Rachio Sprinkler Controller watering the lawn on its own and I have noticed its a little more on the conservative side. I am testing in the app to see how I can get it to water some zones longer than it thinks it should and it seems its taking the information about weather and soil and leaning on less watering.
The device hasn’t had any connection issues and the Ubiquiti UniFi controller has segmented the IOT network at home into its own VLan on the network switches and router – so it appears to be confirmed with the cloud/internet connection regardless of where the mobile app is connected to.
I expect to have a follow up post/added or updated set of notes on this as I continue to use it.