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Our new construction home came with a RainBird sprinkler system pre-installed by the builder. This did have the Rain sensing device installed in the backyard and used to send signals to the Rainbird controller whenever it rained.
The Rainbird controller would then skip the watering automatically whenever the sensor sensed water.
This is good and works but does not include the smartness of today’s world.
To get smarter and skip the watering if there is a weather forecast for rain on the day of the pre-set watering schedule, you need something that can connect to local weather stations.
We bought Rachio 3 for the same purpose and my experience is that it does work in real time.
This article will discuss:
City Rebates on Smart Sprinklers
Most cities in the USA promote installing smart sprinklers (which RainBird is not) and subsidize the purchase and installation cost.
In our case, the City was paying a maximum of $75 for purchase (including installation).
The Rachio controller normally sells for about $200 in the open market but Costco and Samsclub usually run deals in winter.
We timed our Rachio 3 with 12 Zones from Costco for $100 in January. Here is the current deal from Amazon for 16 Zone version:
With the City’s subsidy, the final cost to replace our Rainbird controller with Rachio was $25.
We have saved this much on our water bill due to automatic watering schedule changes and rain forecast watering skips that Rachio does on its own.
How to Find City Rebate
Rachio has a dedicated page for finding the rebate that your city is running for installing smart sprinkler controllers.
Enter your zip code and press ‘Update’ to see the rebates available in your area through the local city water management department.
Installation
Rachio installation is pretty easy and you can do it yourself.
If you have RainBird installed, you will just need to take a picture of the existing wire connections and just plug those wires into the Rachio controller.
Rachio does not need screws. Only plugging the wire works in this smart switch.
It won’t take more than 15 minutes. Rachio also gives you access to your controller via a free smartphone app.
The Rachio app features that I tried and liked:
- Smart scheduling means that Rachio will adjust the watering days per month automatically based on the local weather.
- Connects to the local city weather station and skips watering on days when it is expected to rain or has rained. This is pretty useful.
- Even though we can adjust the watering schedule manually, the best part is that it adjusts the monthly watering schedule automatically based on the season.
- Smart Start and End times
- Intelligent enough to start and end watering at the time of night when the evaporation is lowest to save water.
- Cycle & Soak
- Intelligent watering technique in a round-robin fashion to increase water absorption by the soil.
- Water for like 3 minutes and then let the soil soak for another 3 minutes and then water again for another 2 minutes.
- All these times are managed automatically if you select the ‘Cycle and Soak’ feature in the Rachio app.
Rainbird WiFi & Smartphone App -$$
Rainbird, on the other hand, sells the wifi connector separately easily costing about $100 extra over and above their controller.
Once you install this Rainbird WiFi module (hardware) on the RainBird Controller, you will be able to access the app on your phone.
The app is still not smart enough to connect to weather stations and automatically make decisions on skipping watering. The only benefit I found with their app is to change watering or trigger quick runs through the phone.
FAQ
Yes, smart sprinklers save money in the long run.
If you combine it with a city rebate for the installation of smart sprinklers, you can pretty much recover the cost of the controller within 2 months.
As per a generic estimate, we have found that our water bill reduced by 30%.
Other Rachio products are not required for the Rachio controller to work.
We have only installed the Rachio 3 controller and it works independently and pretty much saves us about 30% water by adjusting using weather patterns.
There is no subscription fee to use the Rachio Controller app.
If there was a fee, we would have not bought it as we do not want to spend money on monthly subscriptions.
