Great controller for lawn sprinkling systems

Use this forum to discuss other items not related to Beer Cans and Dumping.

Moderators: Current Officers, Previous Officers

User avatar
pinnacle-project
Rust Governor
Rust Governor
Posts: 4645
Joined: Sun May 19, 2013 1:23 pm
Answers: 0
Rusty Bunch Member Number: 1111
eBay name: pinnacle-project
Year Started Collecting: 1975
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1285 times
Zodiac:
Status: Offline
United States of America

Great controller for lawn sprinkling systems

#1

Post by pinnacle-project »

Last summer, a friend of mine replaced the controller for his home sprinkler system with a Rachio controller. I said I would love to have one too. My wife surprised me by giving me one as an early Father's Day gift.

http://www.rachio.com/

For people who get into technology (or just want a nice lawn) this thing is great. Installing it was super simple. I just took a picture of the wires connecting my old controller and did the same with the new controller. There are a couple buttons under the cover of the controller but essentially you will need a smart phone to configure it and use it. This device connects to the Internet and gathers data in order to maximize the effectiveness of the water used on your lawn while probably using less than you have in the past. During the configuration, for each zone in your yard, you specify the type of vegetation growing there, the type of soil you have, how much exposure it gets, the slope of the area, and what kind of sprinkler head you have. There are additional advanced settings you can use to fine tune the settings. The app then collects additional data from the Internet in order to make up a watering schedule for your lawn. The schedule is tweaked seasonally. When this is done automatically, an e-mail is sent to you to explain why the tweak was made. It also sends other updates. For example, this morning I received a message indicating my regular morning schedule was being skipped because the forecast says I will receive .32 inches of rain during the next 48 hours. I decided to manually override this skip because it has been really dry over the last month and I think my lawn will be okay by not skipping this morning.

No doubt I am forgetting some of the cool features but as they say on late night TV, "That's not all!" Some parts of the country can actually get a rebate on this thing up to the entire cost of the controller.

http://www.rachio.com/rebates

Unfortunately, my area does not have a rebate available. My friend has been tracking his declining water usage and he says his water savings alone will pay for the device at no sacrifice to the quality of his yard. It comes in both 8 and 16 zone models. The 8 zone model costs $200 on Amazon.

https://smile.amazon.com/Rachio-Sprinkl ... chio&psc=1


Focus: Cones and flats from Michigan, South Bend, and Fort Wayne. Foreign cans only if I bought them myself in the country of origin.

2023 Shows Attended

* Michigan Chapter Winterfest, January 14, Frankenmuth Michigan
* Cabin Fever Reliever, February 24, Mishawaka Indiana
* Buckeye, March 11, Toledo Ohio
* SummerSwap, July 21 & 22, Frankenmuth Michigan

Return to “Other Interests”