Rachio IRO Smart Wifi Enabled Irrigation Controller 8 zones

Actually, I purchased two of the Rachio IRO Smart Wifi Enabled Irrigation Controller 8 zones. One for my house and one for my rental property.  You will not be disappointed! This is a great piece of hardware. I tend to be very picky about my technology and would recommend it to anyone of my friends or family.  It would be nice if they added an ethernet port, but understand that most people do not have an ethernet jack in the garage. The app is pretty intuitive and easy to understand.

I've had the Rachio IOR for about a month and so far so good. It was easy to install and I got it to quickly connect to my home network via Wifi.

I do not have a rain sensor hooked up to the unit (although you can install one). I have used my Rachio 8 zone for the entire summer. I took a picture of my old controller wiring and hooked the same colors to the indicated zone numbers on the Rachio and the zones were exactly the same. The logic for the controller significantly reduced the watering times I had been using for years. Everything looked great all summer long and my water bills were significantly less than in previous years. I believe the feature to set slope, sun exposure, soil type, plant type, etc. was beneficial to these savings.

• Automatic scheduling - Takes information about your zones and location and creates a schedule for you.
• Smart-Cycle - Schedules best practice watering cycles for your unique location.
• Seasonalized - Adjusts watering times throughout the seasons based on your location.
• Weather-Watch - Adjusts schedules to run only when water is needed, and not when rain is providing your yard what it needs.
• Operate from anywhere - Connect to your WiFi and control your sprinkler system from anywhere using an Apple iOS or Android device.

The Rachio forum is a great place to discuss issues and improvement suggestions and is well supported by the Rachio staff. While adjusting sprinklers, it's nice to have the ability to manually start a zone from my phone. No more running back and forth to the garage!

The Rachio IRO also has a "smart control"... meaning that if can cycle through all the zones for short periods of time to allow for water to soak into the soil and prevent runoff. For instance, on my scheduled runs, the sprinkler system will run zone 1 for 4 minutes, then zone 2 for 4 minutes, then zone 3 for 7 minutes, etc... then start the zones again (each zone will have a 30 minute delay before the system runs the next round). This has REALLY helped prevent water runoff in my yard - big time.

The rain delay feature is nice too. Although the system pulls real time weather data, if the weather forecast is calling for showers (lest's say after your sprinklers would normally run), you can simply select a rain delay time period. No more remembering to turn off sprinkler system and then turning sprinkler system back on!

Rachio IRO Smart Wifi Enabled Irrigation Controller 8 zones Setup is very straightforward, you use your Apple or Android device loaded with the product's app to setup an account, sync the unit with you home's WiFi, and schedule watering schedules. This is the only product that understands your yard. It then suggests watering times and durations. Additionally, it monitors weather and makes predictive changes to watering times according to rain or overall seasonal changes.