Now we have to pay for remote access? Disappointing if true
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I have had my Rain Machine since 2017. I purchased it because it was the best alternative at the time. This subscription program is a terrible idea. The messaging on this change is an epic failure in customer relationship management. I am not going to pay for remote access. Therefore, I ordered a new Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller 12-Zone from Costco today on sale for $149.99.
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@Ron Lenzen. That's a great price! I don't need 12 zones, but that price is better than the $170 I just paid for the 8 zone from Rachio during their father's day sale. I haven't even opened the shipping box yet.
However, I don't see the 12 zone listed on Rachio's site? Is it an earlier generation, or is it maybe a current gen Costco exclusive? Anyone know? -
Just ordered a 4 zone Rachio. I've given up on them either reversing this decision or at a minimum adding 2 factor to direct access. From everything I've read the Rachios have much better weather algorithms anyway. As long as Rachio keeps remote free for 4 years it's a wash for me and I get better performance. $30 a year isn't a good deal considering I use my sprinklers for 5 months a year really. Their whole $2.50 a month is also BS because are you going to let me pay for only those months? Add on the fact I am no longer getting notifications in the app and I can't see it being fixed any time soon (esp. if the rumors are true) and I'm cutting my losses. I got 5 pretty good years out of it but it's quickly becoming junk.
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This is a complete baitand switch. I bought two rain machines because I could use the remote access, now essentially I cannot use it unless I pay the premium, Without apparently being a tech person that knows how to port forward! RainMachine has no customer support, no phone lines because they don’t want to deal with all the angry customers. I have posted the same for review on Amazon as well, and no longer can recommend the rain machine to people.
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I'm also very disappointed with this decision by Rain Machine. I feel that I was falsely sold a controller where I once had these services and now cut off without my consent. RM should be ashamed of themselves for deceiving their customers. I will NEVER pay for these services. However, I would've considered had RM been honest in the first place. I live in a newly developed neighborhood with many people asking my advice on smart controllers. I will now be highly recommending other controllers and NOT be recommending Rain Machine. Strength in numbers and we need to stand up to companies like RM where integrity is obviously lacking.
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I'm another outraged owner of a Touch unit. I live in Australia and bought the unit with remote bushfire safety in mind. I'm not inclined to use subscription services especially when my dollar has much less buying power than the US$ - my preference would be to purchase another unit from a company that has higher morals and does not breech the implied trust of the purchaser.
Did the exCEO of Boeing join the company? -
I've now made the decision to toss the Rain Machine controller in the trash and purchase the Rachio 3. It's a shame that RM ruined their reputation with so many customers but this is exactly what companies with zero integrity do. Sorry Rain Machine - you're out as this is what you get when being shady with your customers.
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Rain Machine is sending an email, somewhere in that email they explained how we can access remotely the controller without paying using Port Forwarding, the instructions are here: https://support.rainmachine.com/hc/en-us/articles/6491261659415-Direct-Access-Port-Forwarding- I have not tried the procedure yet, but I will try it tomorrow, I will keep everyone posted.
Some routers such as the Asus Routers is very easy to setup Port Forwarding, some other routers is a little harder, but I believe all of them have this capability. I know that for some folks, this Port Forwarding thing is in Chinese. Their instructions are generic, every router is different. At least Rain Machine is giving us some kind of solution.
UPDATE: Yes, the Port Forwarding procedure works. Like they say, make sure you know your global IP address, they called it PUBLIC IP ADDRESS. If your global IP address is 207.46.13.124:81, when accessing the rainmachine you will add 8080 at the end, like this: 207.46.13.124:81:8080
So ain't paying 29 bucks!
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@Jared Was just going to say the same thing. This should have come out months ago and maybe they could have kept half of their customers by being honest. If they had added 2 factor for direct access I would have kept my RM but even though it was easy enough to setup direct access it's just not secure enough. On top of that now no notifications via the app and if they are circling the drain that means it most likely won't get fixed. Got my Rachio the other day, set it up in like 20 minutes and so far I'm loving it.
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@Jared & @ Anthony - I agree with you both. The email they just sent is a joke too. They basically just lightly touched on what we have said they should have done from the very beginning with this situation. They didn't really own up to anything, but quietly mentioned a few things that have been said they should have done. On top of that, they go on to say how badass their devices are and that they are the best out there. I hate to break it to you RM, but your devices have never been the best out there. You have always been playing catchup with Rachio. The problem is that you have never caught up and have always just kept falling further behind.
Apparently their PR/Marketing department are as terrible as the rest of the company. What they should have said in the recent email is something like, "We did a terrible job of communicating with our very valuable customer base and really fumbled the rolling out of the new subscription service. For that we take full responsibility and sincerely apologize.". Instead they issues some half-ass, extremely ingenious statement about how their product is the best out there and how much they've added to it over the last several years. First of all, what they hell have they added? They've done very little since I've had it for the last 5 years. The only major thing I can think of is they added HomeKit support, which by the way, took them about 2 years to do and way after the other competitors had already rolled it out. Their support has always been garbage too. Joke of a company for sure.
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As I predicted, RM is the new Skydrop. For the person who asked about Rachio 12 zone at Costco, from what I could find it is a Costco only model but I read conflicting opinions on whether it is the latest model. I’m disappointed that RM didn’t even rise to the skydrop level of “sorry not sorry” way too late explanations. Instead of admitting their error, and apologizing (skydrop approach) they doubled down on “our product is soooo great” then tried to scare ppl into buying their service by implying port forwarding would be too difficult for most. That they did this, and are only offering an annual subscription option, at the exact time ppl are going on vacation and heat is worst, is no accident. It’s last ditch extortion.
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@ed8102–I agree but you can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip. RM is doing this bc they’re going out of business. They can’t grandfather old customers bc they don’t have new customers. Their products haven’t been sold on Amazon or in big box stores for a long time. They are going under and trying to squeeze every last dollar out of their customers as they do so. We should be angry, they should be ashamed, but banding together will get nothing out of this failing company.
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@Colleen - What you mentioned about the Costco Rachio had me a little concerned as I was all ready to pick one up this weekend. I did a quick search and found that the Costco version is a version 3, so it is the latest version. It also has a yard map feature, which from what I can tell gives you a birds-eye view of your property and you can map out your different zones using that. Some mentioned in the following thread that they thought it was a version 2 controller because of the picture of the item on the site, but someone from Rachio (Laura) chimed in and said it was indeed a version 3 controller and the graphic was not correct.
Anyone else have this 12 zone that can confirm if there are any differences?
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I had a Blossom controller which got bought out by Scotts. They eventually ended support for it and rendered it useless, but as a goodwill gesture they offered a refund REGARDLESS of warranty status. They paid me $100 (highest last know retail price) for my 4 plus yo unit. I also bought a Wyze cam when it was first introduced and they promised free life time cloud recording. When they found they couldn't support this they started a name your price program with 0 being OK. The RM approach is obviously the wrong and will probably mark the end of the company.
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I was very upset to hear the decision to start charging us. Like everyone else has said, I bought this device because I didn't want to have to pay fees. I would agree to pay $5 a year but higher than that is not right. Someone else mentioned a class action suit. I would be all for that. Can they legally change the rules after you purchased something under a different set of rules? Very disappointing!
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@FT - Do not use port 81.
Let me explain a bit about ports. There are 65000 ports available, the first 1023 are reserved for all kinds of services, we cannot arbitrarily use them. Your browser for example, works using port 80 (unsecured port, 443 is secured port), 53 is for DNS, 22 is secured shell or SSH, 20 is for File Transfer Protocol or FTP, etc., etc. These are called virtual ports, they are not physical ports. There is not wire connected to these ports. Starting on Port 1024 and up are user configurable, so 8080 falls in this category. It looks like RM was configured specifically to use this port 8080, and nothing else. I tried some other ports like 8083, 8084, etc. It did not work. So we must use port 8080. Make sure this port is not configured for anything else on your Port Forwarding list.
They mentioned port 81, a bad example, which confuses people, you just proved that, once again, this port falls in the reserved category of ports.
Check this link out for more info about ports: List of TCP and UDP port numbers - Wikipedia
By the way, use TCP port, do not use UDP.
If you get stuck, just post here, we will try to get you going, it will help everybody.
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You know what folks? This is upsetting to say the least. RM should have grandfathered existing users, and life will be good, but some other businesses are doing the same thing. Wells Fargo for example just started doing the same crap. I have been with WF for years, and never paid any fee for my checking account, well, they just sent me an email stating that starting next month they will start charging me 25 bucks!
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Alex R Thanks for the port explanation. I finally got the static port and fwd working and both direct access and remote through the 30 day trial work. I see no difference between the two and support is no better. No "premium" features to justify paying. Other posts have cited potential security issues with the port fwd method. I was wondering if you have any thoughts regarding that? Also have you been able to get direct access working? I'd rather use that since I really don't need remote.
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@FT while I’m sure everyone is having different access issues with different causes, I found on my app under devices that instead of selecting my system listed somewhat lower in the page, it’s also listed at the very top under local network. That’s been working for me although I suspect now that I said that it won’t any longer
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@FT
My Remote Access trial expired yesterday, but my Direct Access is working just fine. Until my Remote Access worked I did not see any difference between the two. I will recommend to everyone to try to set the Direct Access, it works just fine, and you do not have to pay. Regarding potential security issues with the Port Forwarding I will say is safe. I have been using it for years, never had any problem. What is nice about Port Forwarding is that you can access more than one service in your house via Global IP Address(this means from any part of the world). Right now I have two, the RM and an ADSB receiver tracking airplanes and feeding data to Flightradar24.com
Usually the Global IP Address that we get with our Internet service at home is dynamic, this means, it can change, most of the time it does not. Your Internet service provider can change it any time they want, but 99% of the time they do not change it.
The Remote Access deal is if you want to control your controller from another place away from home. If you do not care about this, you always have Local Access from your home.
UPDATE: To access the RM from a remote computer, type your Global IP Address plus the Port Forwarded like this:
https://123.123.123.123:8080
The https is very important, or you will get an error.
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I agree. This is unacceptable. The premium price we paid for this product was very much driven by the fact that I didn't have to pay a monthly fee. I wonder if this is even legal.
I cannot recommend or purchase another product that doesn't honor common decency and customer service. As a owner of many rental homes, I will probably be switching products, as they are much cheaper and there's no incentive left to purchase Rain Machine products.
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Now, without Premium Access, the controller continues to send push messages to the phone, but does not take into account the state of the weather and weather station NETATMO when watering. It just works stupidly like a watering timer. Exactly as many minutes as laid down in your program!!
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I will allow you to add information by port and address.
I have a white static external address on the Internet in the house. The controller is connected by a twisted pair to the local network in the house and has a static address.
To find out the port, I entered my controller in a browser on a computer on my home IP network and the browser connected to this address - http ://192.168.2.237: 8081/ui/
So I made a Port 8081 splash on my router.
When entering in a browser on a remote PC
https://IP_PUBLIC:8081 I enter the controller freely. Pay attention to httpsBut in any browser on a phone with iOS, you no longer need to type https, but http! Otherwise, do not go to the controller.
I could not configure the application on an iOS phone. In the settings, I enter and just IP_PUBLIC:8081 and IP_PUBLIC:81, do not connect to the controller. The waiting ring is spinning to infinity.
I tried to enter http://IP_PUBLIC:8081, but http is automatically replaced with https. And still the connection does not happen!!
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