Discontinued Rachio WiFi Smart Lawn Sprinkler Controller, 8-Zone 2nd Generation, Alexa Compatible with Rain, Freeze and Wind Skip (8ZULW-B)

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What an amazing gadget and MADE IN THE USA !!! The sprinkler controller is in the basement of my 2 family home which means turning of the sprinkler for rain delays is 2 flights of stairs away. I don't mind the trip down the stairs but I was forgetting to turn the unit back on and the grass was getting super dry. Also, if it starting raining when I wasn't home and the rain sensor didn't pick up a storm or heavy rain fall the unit would run unnecessarily as scheduled. Since I care about the environment and saving some money I set out to find a remote way to turn off my sprinklers and found the Rachio. I followed the installation instructions and took a picture of my old 1994 Orbit Controller which made the transition super fast and super easy. It took me about 10 minutes in total to replace the old controller with the Rachio. I had installed the Rachio app on my phone when I initially ordered the unit so it was just waiting to sync with the controller on install day. I installed a new rain sensor and that also seemed really simple. With the installation going so well I wondered if the unit was really going to work?? So I checked my iPhone and the system was online so I set outside to test and set my 6 sprinkler zones. Standing on the front lawn I was able to turn on each zone and set what type of landscape occupied each of the zones. I was able to take pictures and save them to my App along with a description of the zones. I cannot express how simple this was. The added benefit of being able to control your sprinkler system from you phone is you are able to troubleshoot the system without help. Evaluating my sprinkler heads usually involves me in the basement and my husband yelling when to turn on and turn off each of the zones...Not fun. Besides saving money being able to shut my unit off remotely I was able fix a few sprinkler heads that were actually watering the street instead of my lawn. I honestly am super excited to use my Rachio . I am saving money and conserving water. I also believe by avoiding the "over" watering of the lawn the foundation of my home will benefit as well. Besides being MADE IN THE USA this little unit ROCKS.. and will pay for itself over time.

Amazingly functional with almost too much information. So many options for programming zones. I don't have grass. Half acre of trees, perennials an annuals all on a multi level slope with as much as a 200' rise. I use various styles of emitters (drip, spray, low volume spinners, etc.). Over time things disconnect, clog and break. These must be discovered and repaired. All of the emitters in all of the zones are remote from the Rachio controller. There's at least 600' of half inch poly serving the zones. The beauty of this situation is that I can be in the field turning zones on and off for testing from my cell phone and making repairs as needed without slogging up and down, in and out to operate zones from the controller. Extremely easy install and a short learning curve for basic operation. Now I will study up on yhe advanced control features to see ow and which ones apply. I had thought to add a flow meter to the main irrigation line but they appear quite pricey and seems there's a limited number of supported meter for thr Rachio. Still looking

I have been using a Rain Bird controller for over 16 years and recently converted to Rachio. The setup is very simple, although I connected a couple of wires incorrectly, it was easily resolved with a call to Rachio's support which is amazing. They are very helpful and responsive via email and phone. In fact, based on support alone, I would recommend the product. My Rachio is in the garage and connecting to wifi was also very easy (I am using a wifi range extender). The Rachio app is very intuitive, thus easy to setup and use. Zones are easy to reference as the app allows pictures and description. It is now so much easier controlling the sprinklers with my phone from any place and at any time instead of being restricted to when I am in the garage.

I have installed the Rachio Gen 2 controller a few months ago and since then I've had an opportunity to discover helpful features and missed opportunities. I have read numerous reviews on this product and decided to purchase through Amazon.ca since there was no retailer available here in Canada. The product was delivered in a timely manner and the price was comparable to other irrigation controllers. Upon receiving the product I was surprise and pleased with the small size of the controller. I ordered the 8 zone model but the size is no different from the 16 zone model. The manuals provided or the ones available for download were fairly helpful. Some of the language and terminology could be changed but basically they were helpful. This model, Rachio Gen 2, has replace a Rainbird Esp-ME (working) and is used for my 4 zone irrigation ( front yard, side yard, back yard and flower gardens). We don't experience the water restrictions that others in warmer clients do however we do have some restrictions occasionally. We are on city water and we pay a flat rate for the water service each year. Water savings is not critical however it is always a concern. It also rains here...a lot. Since I am a building contractor, installing the Rachio controller in my home was not a problem. The controller looks as though it is hardwired however it is not. A nice clean look is very important to me. I was able to modify the wall which accepts the controller. Installation of the controller was pretty straightforward. Here are a few of the pros and cons: Pros: The ability to control most aspects of the irrigation through my phone or computer is certainly beneficial. The Rachio Gen 2 controller uses local weather or PWS's for irrigation times. There are a couple of sensor options on the controller as well. (rain, flow) I can also manually water each zone, anytime, anywhere, if I want, thru my phone. I can also change schedules through my phone or computer. This is a very convenient feature for myself and potentially for my clients. I haven't had to use the one 800 number yet and the updates are relatively frequent. The engineers at Rachio seem to be making slight changes to the product with some improvements. So far...so good. (That's encouragement btw) Cons: since the Rachio product is reliant on local weather stations to preform at its best, availability of good local or personal weather stations in my area is critical. The Rachio app allows you to choose local weather stations however these are limited to a few. My closes pws is 4.5 km away and the reliability is questionable. Having the WU (weather underground) as an option could be benificial to me and to Rachio. Personal weather stations in my area afiliated with the weather underground appear to be more reliant. Rachio does provide a work-a-round to the WU, but you must have a Mac ($1000-$2000). There are other option too but the price just goes up. ( special router, your own PWS $$$). Power. An option to hardwire the product. I don't want to see the wires. Start/Stop. I see the option to start irrigation at a specific time within the app but...I don't see the option to stop irrigation at a specific time. I need to stop at 9am. C'mon! Generally the Rachio Gen 2 product is fairly good. The updates and improvements seem slow in coming but I hold out hope that they will eventually arrive. I'll use the Rachio and watch the updates but I will keep the Rainbird ESP-ME on hand just in case. Update; April 2017, I've been using the Gen2 Rachio for almost a year now. No glitches at all. Updates are regular and the controller preformed as advertised. Other irrigation controllers are late to the table (smart features) or too bulky. I would give this controller 4 1/2 to 5 stars (ability to hardwire and weather station). So far...very good.

I have only used this for a week, but I am already impressed. As other reviews state, installation is fairly simple, and the initial setup using the app is smooth. The app itself is well-designed, and I found it easy to use. The main reason I bought this was that my old controller was beginning to give me issues (the programming keypad was failing). Using this unit, I am able to perform manual watering when I am away from home (this is especially beneficial for our garden). I predict that this will also make my fall maintenance easier, in that I won't have to physically go to the controller to manually advance the irrigation zones while evacuating the water lines.

A fantastic product that works exactly and as easily as the online videos have shown me. Setup was a snap. I set the stopwatch on my phone and it took me exactly 14 minutes and 13 seconds to remove my old TORO panel and replace it with the Rachio, and I was taking my time. If I had to do it again, I'm sure it would be under 10 minutes. It was a totally seamless transition from my ancient TORO controller to the Rachio, I couldn't be more pleased. Do not hesitate to purchase this controller if you're on the fence. I bought this on the recommendation of the owner of the irrigation company that services our sprinkler system, and I can confidently say that I can pass on the same recommendation to whoever reads this.