Rachio 16ZULW-C 3rd Generation: Smart, 16 Zone Sprinkler Controller By Innovative smart health home item for gift

★★★★★ This is my first Rachio product and I purchased on the advise of my next door neighbor and brother whom both own previous versions. I am glad I took their advice as this controller is nothing short of awesome. It is well constructed, has easy to understand instructions, was very easy to install, and the app for your smart phone is very well designed and thought out.I've been using this device for about three weeks now and I am very happy with the results. The device is hyper intelligent and will run as automated or as manual as you prefer. You can run it every day exactly when you want to, or you can set it up to monitor the weather conditions in your area and allow it to determine when and how much to water. I have a personal weather station on top of my house and I have connected my Rachio to the weather data received by my PWS. Smart watering is based on actual rain fall amounts at my house and not for some remote weather station miles away from me.It is obvious Rachio has done their homework and have produced a high quality device that works extremely well. The app is equally amazing and you can run everything from the phone app or from the controller itself. At a glance you can verify if the system is on-line and connected to wi-fi and if it is actively watering a zone. This unit supports up to 8 zones. I only have 6 so I have disabled the last two from my setup. If you have an Amazon Echo you can control everything through that device but if you use HomeKit like me, that functionality is waiting in the wings. I am hopeful that feature is added soon, but honestly, the controller is already so automated there's really not much advantage to the voice controlled aspect anyway. Highly recommend this unit. I am thoroughly impressed and pleased with my purchase.

★☆☆☆☆ Installation of this system is easy. I simply removed my old, dumb controller and replaced it with the Rachio. I wired the old leads into the new system with no trouble. The wires don't fit quite as well into the sleek controller, so the cover doesn't sit flush, but that's a minor complaint. The app looks nice, and it's nice to be able to control my sprinklers and drip system with my phone, particularly when I'm changing the drip around and need to test it.During the winter in California, we had massive rains and Rachio was smart enough to basically never water at all. However, now that we're into the summer, we are experiencing our typical temperatures into the nineties. I was getting my regular pop-ups that Rachio was watering, so I was happy. Then I noticed our lawns all turning brown. I looked into it some more and realized Rachio was watering them for five minutes every other day! In 95 degree weather no less.It's nice to have a remote control for your sprinklers, but that's not why you buy this product. You buy it to have the intelligence to water your garden without having to worry about it. The app has some *complex* scheduling options, but why would I want that? The whole point was to make things easier. I'd rather go back to the old Rain Bird, program the zones manually, and buy a remote. The intelligence isn't there, and Rachio is killing my lawn. Trying to figure out how to modify the schedule, by the way, is neither intuitive nor easy.Oh, I called their technical support for help and after 10 minutes on hold, the system tells you there are no agents available. Nice trick. I could have saved 10 minutes of my life if they told me that earlier.I was swayed by the positive reviews but definitely would recommend against buying this product.

★★☆☆☆ Worst customer service I’ve encountered... maybe in my lifetime. You will get a number of emails the first day, none of which will resolve your issue or even try for that matter, but radio silence will follow. I just about have every smart device on the market so I’m not new to tweaking something until it works; however, this device has some major issues in its design. In a weeks time it stayed online for maybe 15 minutes. It seemingly can’t reconnect on it’s own either, even with an extender 10ft. away. Smart doorbell, video cameras, you name it outside with no issue... this couldn't find a channel if it were sitting next to a router. I guarantee there are more people with this issue but Rachio has bet they can offload this and come out with a better version at a later time. Who cares about all the features if it can’t stay connected long enough to use them. I really had high hopes for this device. Shame on you, Rachio! I lost count of how many emails I sent requesting assistance without even one hint of a solution being provided.