Is a Rachio 3 worth an extra $100 over a Rainmachine?
Recently purchased a house with a sprinkler system and was shocked at how much water it uses. I'm interested in a smart sprinkler system and currently looking at the Rachio 3 or the basic Rainmachine unit. From what I've read they're both pretty close, but the Rachio app is a little more intuitive and has most options in terms of configuration. I know the rainmachine is also cloud independent which is nice. Is the Rachio 3 worth $100 more than the basic Rainmachine?
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Hi, Jacob
Your post had some outside links that the SPAM filter did not let pass.
We edited those and now your post is published.The best way to answer your question is to test our RainMachine mobile iOS or Android apps.
Using our RainMachine mobile apps you can easily configure your zones (add images, set their soil, vegetation, sprinkler head types, slope and sun exposure), create as many programs as you want - set their start time, frequency, cycles, soak time, delay between zones, add zones custom times or choose the suggested ones, use weather data to know exactly when to water or no. Set watering restrictions based on your area. If you ever need a Pause during a watering event you can pause the entire device for a desired amount of time. And many more features...To test our mobile apps, just follow the steps described here: https://www.rainmachine.com/trynow.html
Thank you, Jacob!
RainMachine Support -
I Can speak to this as i had a Rachio 2 before moving to the rain machine, the Rain Machine is much more customization in that you can do so much more if you are a tinkerer of sorts.
The Rachio is much better for those who don't want a ton of control or customization over their solution, and just want a set and forget it.
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I checked out the Rachio 3, having used RainMachine about 8 months.
* If you do not have a personal weather station on Weather Underground, then Rachio may be better.
* If your controller will be mounted outdoors, Rachio is rated for a wider range of temperatures.
* if your system has, or you intend to install, a flow meter, the Rachio supports it, although whether it warns if zone flow increases between or during irrigation events when a line or sprinkler bursts was unclear to me. Rachio seemed to focus on detecting water flow when not irrigating.
* if you are interested in soil moisture sensing, the Rachio 3 supports switches; another company named Spruce offers a controller that supports wireless moisture sensors. Changing batteries every year and removing/replacing sensor for mowing might get tiresome...
My experience has been that few commercially installed irrigation zones are properly balanced, and actually dialing in sprinklers to optimize water usage requires really accounting for soil conditions, slopes and shade, which is RainMachine's "open loop" alternative to soil moisture feedback.
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If Rachio goes out of business your controller is a paper weight as the controller is entirely cloud dependent.
If Rainmachine goes out of business your controller will continue to function though some things may stop working in the interim. Rainmachine's code is open source and available on github, if they go out of business I have no doubt the community will step up and maintain the system.
For that reason alone you should skip Rachio.
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