Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller: 16 Zone | Simple Auto Schedules, Quick Run, Local Weather Intelligence. (Save Water w/Rain, Freeze & Wind Skip)

Finally figured out annoying zone Fault error for master valve operation when multiple master valve connected to the M terminal along with the regular zones Operation for about less than $20 wiring work, Really simple wiring and thanks to amazon for selling such simple devices to help rescue in this matter. It’s shame that rachio engineers didn’t design enough power for each channel especially when there is M terminal available for use. Customer should not need to buy anything else to make it work all together. At least they should have allowed up to 5 Amps of power usage for simultaneous multiple zones operations and multiple master valve operation. Which is very common these days. Anyways. I highly recommend, using individual master valves for front and back if you have multiple pipes feeding irrigation at your home, to save on leaks, and protect your irrigation and extend valve life using these available master valve terminals on Rachio 3. It is very simple, to wire up. I got all links for the product and wiring diagram shown below that has been tested and work prefectly. This is all you need. I have got 2 Master valves (1 for front yard, 1 for back yard), hooked up to external power source of 24VAC plugin type, using this simple DIN mount $10 24vac contactor, https://amzn.to/46q988x And this power supply, 24VAC, https://amzn.to/3I0UI6B wired externally to power up these master valve it works flawlessly, I am using these master valves https://amzn.to/4mck5QJ which shows 5W power consumption which is great for the application, however always have higher rated power supply purchased, to be safe to handle inrush (higher current for start up) current of valves when they open initially. I was able to simplify the circuit and use these externally powered master valve with any zones without any zone fault error or compatibility issues with Rachio 3. The product I shared above have been tested by myself, and I guarantee it works as long as you wire them correctly. if you have any questions then please let me know. If you use my link to purchase, it would tremendously help me provide support for your need, feel free to text me here if you have any questions. Hopefully, these photos with wiring diagram helps you out. If not just shoot me question here. The wiring for external pump would be very similar, but I can help you with that if you have unique situations for your case. Just ping me here and be happy to prepare your circuit diagram.

Though is not inexpensive, I think I’ve already paid for this water system by saving water. My husband and I installed it and I use the app on my phone to set up a schedule. It understands when it’s going to rain and prevents the sprinklers from going on. It doesn’t use sensors, it watches the weather forecast online. So far it has worked perfectly. Recently, we needed to turn on one station to make sure that the outlets were working properly in our vegetable garden. All I had to do was go to the right station and put it on manually. It was very easy. Our yard and gardens look great! I really like this system!

I purchased this controller to replace 2 older digital controller that don’t support WiFi. I have a pump start relay in my sprinkler configuration so it took me a minute to figure out the connections for this install. The rest was plug and play. By consolidating to a single controller, it is now much easier to manage sprinkler activities. I can control everything from my phone or tablet. No more running from the garage to a zone for testing. All functions are easily managed by my phone. Even ad hoc watering is easy. Because of location services on my phone, it knows what the local weather will be during my scheduled watering and will cancel or adjust watering as needed. I highly recommend this controller.

I’ve owned many sprinkler controllers. None come close to the features and ease of use of this one…

I purchased the Rachio 16-zone controller to replace my aging Weathermatic controller. I have 9 zones; of course, Murphy's Law, Rachio only makes an 8-zone and a 16-zone controller; hence, I had to buy the larger one leaving me with 7 unused zones. Online reviews imply that Rachio has both a mobile (smartphone or tablet) and desktop (web app) programming interface. Actually, this was one of my primary criteria for purchasing the Rachio - I'm "old-school" and prefer a web-based interface. 🙂 However, I ran into problems when trying to create (add) a schedule using Rachio's web app. I contacted Rachio Support about this and was told, "[Rachio] no longer recommend[s] using the web app for managing schedules or making any changes to your account. Unfortunately, the web platform hasn't been updated in quite some time, which can lead to bugs, inaccurate information, or other unexpected issues, such as the one you're currently experiencing." Boo! 😕 So, looks like it's the mobile app or nothing. I live in the Dallas (north Texas) area which typically imposes watering restrictions during summer months (for example, one or two days a week, and only during restricted hours). Rachio offers three types of schedule: Fixed, Flex Monthly, and Flex Daily. A Fixed schedule allows you to explicitly specify the day(s) of the week when the schedule is to run, and is recommended by Rachio for localities (such as ours) with watering restrictions. The other two schedule types rely on the controller to "do its own thing" watering on day(s) and at times when it deems necessary, based on factors like plant type, temperature, rainfall, wind, etc. Flex schedules are inappropriate for our area since they would violate watering restrictions. So, looks like I can't make use of Rachio's "smart" features, and I've set up a fairly straightforward Fixed schedule specifying one day a week during the overnight hours and a fixed time for each zone to be watered. In this area, it's commonplace to build homes with "foundation drip systems" to keep the clay soil around the foundation moist, preventing it from drying out and shrinking away from the foundation. The foundation drip systems are a zone in the sprinkler system, and consist of buried, perforated plastic tubing. While the Rachio controller supports a variety of zone types, there's no zone type for "foundation". So you just have to pick any of the supported types. These are a few of my "first impressions" on setting up the Rachio controller. I'll update this review to let you know how well the Rachio controller actually works.