New Premium Service
I am OUTRAGED to know that I can no longer access my controller unless I am connected to my local network. Your new policy is definitely directed at enhancing your profits at the cost of customer satisfaction. All of the enhancements you indicate as part of this plan are basically unnecessary. I plan on filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and the California Attorney General’s Office. This is price gouging and not supporting a product as it was originally intended. Expect a negative review on Amazon and any other on-line web site where your product is sold. I will be replacing my controller ASAP!
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How is this even legal? To begin charging for services (multiple, not just remote services based on the "premium" service announcement). It's the same as buying a car, driving it for 5 years, then the dealer sends you a subscription fee to be able to use the brakes. It was part of the initial purchase of the product, all existing owners should be grandfathered in, like how Wyze has been handling new features on its existing customers.
I can see that if money is tight you want to adjust your marketing plan and change the feature list to subscription based for NEW customers and advertise everything as such... But to blindside your existing customer base like this is disgusting, and of questionable legality.
I will also be seeking a refund if this new line of marketing is not altered to grandfather in existing customers.
Be loyal to those that are current users, don't go reaching into our pockets.
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For those that say why do you need remote access - it is very useful to be able to use remotely when adjusting sprinklers or when the guy comes to vent them for the winter. Don't know about you but on purpose I don't allow my wifi to wander beyond the walls, porch and the deck - and the garage where the controller is.
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I hope they get sued and are forced to shut the doors and the company for good. They've proven once again, much more blatant this time, that they are nothing but a scamming and fraudulent company. I don't do business with those companies, so even if they change their mind, I won't. Time to start looking for my next smart sprinkler controller. I also need to figure out what I will use to smash my Touch HD. Car, hammer, put it in a blender... so many choices.
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Interesting. This new page was added 1.5 hrs ago under Community >> Announcements
I just setup direct access and it was pretty easy and seems to work just like it did via their proxy so we can maybe still access what we always have? As long as the weather and watering algorithms aren't premium then I'm good this way. However, I will also add that I work in IT and have 23 years of IT experience, have a custom setup router and previously configured DDNS so I only needed to add a quick port forward and manually add to my app. For the "regular" user this could be a little complicated.
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This is exactly what Wink Home automation did with its hubs. What was once a free service started charging $5 a month fee and left a small portion of the feature set free. Basically, rendered the hub useless without a subscription. Needless to say, a mass exodus of customers followed and left a lot of folks in the lurch.
https://www.komando.com/gadgets/smart-home-company-charging-monthly-fee/738155/
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Lol there was strictly no New feature on RainMachine pro for almost 3 years.
No New weather services. No water sensor improvements (per session consumption)
And you are just saying "pay a great service for New updates"
How are we supposed to pay and be confident on quality service as you didnt prove at anytime those last 3 years that WE could trust you....
The worst thing in your announcement is the "New features update" and water reports
Exactly what WE have bien waiting for 3 years.
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I am utterly disgusted by this behaviour. I have 2 RainMachines, bought on the basis of the availability of this feature, which are now being removed. It’s a bit like paying school fees for your kid, then halfway through the year the school says “we’ll continue to provide the classrooms, but you have to pay a new special fee for tuition”. We came here for the tuition AND the classrooms thanks very much.
I will be investigating options for referring this to the Fair Trading Commission in my state.
Good luck remaining a going concern RainMachine. With this type of stunt, watch us all go out and get a Rachio.
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Speaking of the FTC - this is exactly their stance on it. This is, at the very least, a violation of deceptive advertising. From the FTC:
What makes an advertisement deceptive?
According to the FTC's Deception Policy Statement, an ad is deceptive if it contains a statement - or omits information - that:
-Is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances; and
-Is "material" - that is, important to a consumer's decision to buy or use the product.To advertise those major features as being included with the product, then rip them out of the product and FORCE you to pay for them again, well, yeah, that would be deceptive advertising to say the least. What a terrible, terrible company. I cannot wait to watch them crumble and be forced to close up shop over this! Good riddance, RM!
Off to look for my next controller. Next stop, Rachio!
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I'm not happy about this either. I use the remote access when I'm on vacation to water my garden and keep my pond full. Normally I don't turn a program ON, but just activate it when needed based on local rainfall data (e.g. checking wunderground for rainfall data at a nearby station). For the pond, it's really variant based on evaporation. So I have a camera pointed at the pond that I can check remotely, when it looks low I turn on that valve to refill the pond.
If I couldn't access remotely I'd turn a program ON for the garden, but the pond would be problematic. I'd have to refill for worst-case evap. loss which meant I'd probably be using too much water.
Have not tried the Direct Access method yet, maybe if I can get that too work I'd have an alternative. Before buying the RM Pro I looked at alternatives, like Rachio. But none of them would let me activate manual watering, via the unit itself, for any time (Rachio was limited to 3 minutes). I frequently water part of my garden manually with a hose (active when an unused zone is activated and turns on the master valve) so need the manual access feature.
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I've just read the announcements and as I understand it, the old remote access on the device is now being referred to as 'direct access' and the new 'remote access' is a new option control method using the cloud. The same thing happened to us with our cameras but we continued to use them accessed directly.
The one thing that worries me is that my notifications have stopped and that is a major problem for us in the UK.
Clarification would be useful. -
Remote access via “Direct Access” has a whole different set of network security implications and should not be attempted by less tech-savvy consumers. IMO, It is irresponsible of RainMachine to add it to the FAQ as a 1:1 replacement for the cloud connectivity without proper warnings when people are going to try anything to keep their devices operating as they had for years.
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I read the email last night and I'm disappointed as well considering I bought the original HD-12 many years ago for my other residence and moved over to a Pro-16 at our new home. Like many of you, I did the research and the RainMachine had the most bang for the buck vs the competition.
I can certainly understand that the pandemic hit companies hard and Green Electronics is probably no exception as it's been difficult to get manufacturing and shipments back on track. Still, no excuse for the change to a "subscription service", but that seems to be the way of a lot of companies to keep the revenue stream flowing. Someone mentioned Wink, which I thought was a great platform, but with no new products in the wings and a recently monthly service fee, I moved on and discontinued the use of the device.
I'm not going to slam the company for the decision to charge for certain services, but hope they will reconsider for their long-time users, maybe at least a reduced cost for their dedicated users. I will likely pay the fee and give the company a chance to deliver in the first year and see what happens. The cost per month boils down to less than the cost of a bottle of Peroni beer at our local Italian bistro. In the meantime, I'll do some research to see what other options are out there but we're hitting the summer irrigation system and need the remote access now. By October in upstate New York, most everyone starts to shut down their systems for the winter. I'll make a final decision once the yearly payment comes due from RainMachine and decide if I want to stay with the system.
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@Angela: Me too. I opened this thread the day before this announcement about the notifications. Not sure if it's related.
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@Mark Olney - I’m sure that’s because these recent updates include the backend changes to start restricting app features based on subscription status. It’s all probably there just waiting for them to turn it on. During these big changes to the app, which we won’t really see until they enable it, they’ve introduced a bunch of bugs and the app is no longer stable. It’s just more incompetency from the RM folks. Terrible leadership has trickled down into the application itself.
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The app I have no issues with but the watering algo seems to have gone wrong f late.I have an every 2 days for 20 mins all 7 zones starting 06:30, in the past it has adjusted via adaptable weather tweaks as expected. The week before last it held off due to rain - good - and then was due to go on again and we had a couple of hot days coming so when it opted to do 35 mins each, I figured the coming heat was why. Tuesday I deactivated as the lawn was getting mowed and left off as the wife said the lawn was not really dry. Readable to run today and again 35 mins instead of 20 - and it was mid to high 70’s today and tomorrow. Caught and dropped each to 15 mins only. We’ll see what Monday brings.
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I just tried and switched off the remote access in the app. With enabled VPN, it is not possible to get a connection via the app. But it works with the web UI.
I will definitely not use the premium service. Not because of a 30$ yearly fee. I also understand that it might get difficult for a small company to offer a service which occurs costs without a revenue.
The reason why I will not use premium is the lack of honesty. A clear communication why it is not possible any longer to offer a service for free would have been the better approach. In this case, I would have considered to be a premium client.
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Following on from Rainmachine charging for Remote access (which is in itself appalling) I followed instructions to enable Direct Access. Looking at my router firewall log there have been multiple attempts to hack into my system on that port from both China and Russia. I have since removed the port forward. I suspected this might occur and whilst I hope my firewall is good enough the risk isn't worth it. I will no longer recommend Rainmachine and will actually advise against it. Currently looking for a replacement.
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Has anyone managed to sign up for the Premium Service? The announcement email just sends one to a web page telling you to sign in via the web interface or phone app.* In both the app & the web interface, there's no place to sign up for the service as near as can tell. They might find more takers if they made it easy to sign up.
* RainMachine Premium Services Says "For uninterrupted access and in order to Get Premium Services, sign in with your RainMachine Remote Access email account using one of the RainMachine applications listed above."
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Rain bird always made a nice timer. I use the Rainbird timers at work for all the grounds which is about 9 grounds including baseball fields soccer fields etc… put in your soil type and type of grass and it uses same technique using ET and automatic seasonal adjust. And you can even get the soil dampness gauges too and wire them
In with flow sensors to adjust the actual ‘amount’ of water. I think I’m done with this RainMachine now. I will tell everyone not to go with this company. Just like I steered everyone away from the Rachio timers and to go with RainMachine because of the cloud independence of the RainMachine.
Goodbye RM -
Yes you can. All free!!! With Rainbird app. It’s great!! I do love the RainMachine at my two homes. But I will say bye I think. Try the Rainbird WiFi st8i-2.0 . Or you will have to go to the emt version for any systems more than 8 or 12 zones. I forget though. In the app you can take pics of each zone. I even edit the pics with some text stating the amount of heads. Just because in spring for the first start up always missing one head that doesn’t pop up. Lol. You get to see the forecast data and everything. How sensitive you want the weather data. Everything. Even with a simple local rain sensor I always use the Hunter Miniclik ones. States local rain when it’s detected and also you can control vents to simulate drying of soil. Then determine how many days you would like to postpone for the local rain events. It’s a very nice timer for $150 the Rainbird wifi ST8i-2.0
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