Rachio

Josh Mentzer

3 years ago

I love the app and the options to fine tune the water schedule to my needs. However, since a recent update, they have taken out the Thrive button in the app. So now i have no way of marking that I've applied Lawn Champion so it can adjut the watering schedule as needed. So the app still shows that it needs to be applied and that my nutrient levels are low. Please fix this Rachio. Once fixed I'll change my rating.

Eric Peterson

4 years ago

Hardware works well, app not so much. The basic install is easy, but controlling and monitoring the sprinklers is very tedious. Help is terrible; there's a knowledge-base with no filters, searching or categories. Also an online community that may give you an answer after 20 minutes of digging. Lots of potential here if they can fix their user interface issues. It really should be at least as easy to use this as my "old school" controllers... Please!

Carol Widdison

11 months ago

I have used Rachio as my watering system for several years and have enjoyed it. Last year I struggled setting a new schedule for the water restrictions in my community. The app kept changing the program to a previous one. This year I have spent the past 2+ months trying to change the settings again to reflect the current conditions. Nothing is intuitive. It's been frustrating and upsetting. My lawn has struggled and I feel stupid. Not good.

A Google user

4 years ago

The app has a few bugs, but overall is not bad. One issue I've seen is that every time one of my drip zones runs, it'll run for 2+ hours, but then will still say it's 0% saturated. So it tries to run again the next day. I have to go in to that zone and "fill it" so that it doesn't keep trying to run again. One last gripe is that now there's a huge ad/product push in the latest update. Can't get rid of it either.

A Google user

4 years ago

There's a bug with the quick run button for a zone where you can swipe it down but then the whole screen it's still grayed out but realistically speaking you shouldn't be able to swipe it down since the method of input is a swiping on the numbers so having two vertical swipe gestures right next to each other isn't very intuitive since i always swipe where it said min which closes it but swiping on the numbers covers them up so i can't see what I'm doing. Still a good app though.

Chris Pilot

2 years ago

They've made it better since I first bought a Rachio and started using the app, but it's still a little jinky and confusing at times. The app also loses connectivity with my Rachio about 1/10 times (closing and restarting corrects it). I have definitely found it better to dumb it down quite a bit. The "smart" schedules come dangerous close to killing my landscape, so it's usually better to put it on a set schedule of 2-3x/week and enable the weather skips (a smart function that does work well).

John Hesse

1 year ago

Edit: I'm changing this from 1 to 4 stars. They replied to my email request with the explanation of how to edit my schedule. However, it's more difficult to navigate than it used to be. To edit your schedule, you have to first click on the device icon. But the calendar that shows past and future seems to be gone. Rachio is a capable and functional app. We are having lots of rains here now and it is canceling the watering schedule properly, as it has always done. App navigation is unintuitive.

g

3 weeks ago

This app worked perfect for the last 2 years. After the update on the 6th I cannot connect to my Wi-Fi no matter what I do. On the screen where it says what Wi-Fi do you want to connect to nothing shows up. Restarted my phone. Uninstalled the app. Reset the controller multiple times and still no Wi-Fi pops up yet 20 devices at my house are connected.

F Z

5 months ago

Please add ability to manually add a hidden Wi-Fi SSID, and I will gladly change my rating. Manufacturers need to understand what a pain in the rear it is to go into your router, broadcast your SSID, apply and save, connect a new device, go back into the router, hide it again, etc... It's a whole thing and I've only had to do it one other time and really don't want to do that again. 99% of devices these days allow manually adding a hidden network. Let's add this one to that majority please.

Tony W

1 month ago

I can't believe I didn't switch to the rachio controller sooner. Given that, I think there needs to be some improvements for some options like the soil moisture fill and empty buttons. I pressed it by accident. 1. Should have a confirmation if that's what you want to do. 2. Should be a way to go back to the status it was at originally in case you accidentally pressed one of those buttons 3. Should be a way for you to fine tune the moisture percentage level.

Kevin Rosario

2 months ago

Works great. One piece feedback: there should be an option to enable a consolidated events feed for those of us with multiple rachio products. For example I have the sprinkler controller and smart hose timer. Currently I have to go into each device and tap events to see what's running today, tomorrow etc. When I open the app the first thing I'd like to see a feed or timeline of all my schedules from all devices.

Joe

1 month ago

overall the app is very easy to use, works great when I am away or want to test run after the winter months. I like how you can select which heads can focus on certain areas or "zones" to give more attention to certain parts of your lawn. and best of all it skips on days when the weather is going to rain or thinks we can go a little longer without rain.

John G

1 month ago

Very far from perfect. Interface requires way too many selections to get to where you want to go. Weather forecast is skewed too heavily on saving water, except lately the sprinklers have come on when it's raining and the forecast is rain all day even after changing station types. Customized settings are way to complicated - it's a sprinkler not a moon landing! Integration with Google Home is practically non-existant - off and on is all you get, and that's ONLY for zone 1, nothing for other zone

Russ Willett

1 month ago

Love the controller for my water system. The only setup challenge/difficulty I had was to figure out how to turn off my 5ghz wifi temporarily so the 2.4ghz could connect. After that, I turned it back on, and no problems since. Intuitive user interface. Two years ago I had another brand and it was always dropping it's wifi connection. Super happy I switched to Rachio.

Adam Sinclair

2 weeks ago

The app used to be good but the last update is terrible. Please fix the watering duration when creating a schedule. The "seconds" option is a waste and when I save my schedule, it reverts back to some weird duration that I did not manually compute. Give us the option to type in the number instead of slowly scroll for the number.

John McTurnan

3 weeks ago

I have had this for about 4 years. While it still is better than old school controllers, it has not improved at all. The bugs are irritating but not showstoppers, and the UI looks good, but is tedious to navigate. Another reviewer correctly pointed out that the Smart schedule is more like "keep barely alive". That's fine in water restricted areas, but not as relevant for the rest of us.

Wade Christensen

1 week ago

Been using this system for several years now, and over that time, I've eventually disabled all the smart features and switched to fixed schedules. The smart features never put down enough water and every year my plants and lawn would be cooked by the end of summer. Making adjustments to all the factors that are used to influence the smart controls is complicated and basically becomes a guessing game. I do appreciate some of the smart features like rain/freeze skip and cycle & soak though.