new premium yearly subscription fees and lack of "grandfathering in" previous buyers..
I have been a huge supporter of your products since I spoke with Drago back in 2015 and I now have 6 of your controllers and was planning on buying another as soon as it becomes available.. In my opinion there is no other device that comes close... you guys have been incredible in updating and improving your software over the years... and your customer support has always been top notch... I have a number of homes that are remote and the ability to access the controllers via the web is probably the main reasons I bought your controllers... and it's ability to sync with Weather Underground and our personal weather stations for areas that are in micro climates...I have recommended your product to many people over the years..
I can only imagine that the inability to buy chips is killing your business.. and that you might be in a tail spin financially.. I am sorry if that is the case... but I like many other people am outraged and disappointed in your decision to implement a $30 a year subscription service to your your customers who bought the devices before this change and are not being "grandfathered in".... I get it that you need the $$ and that you aren't selling any new machines because of supply chain problems but this change in policy leaves a horrible taste in my mouth.. obviously the high road for you would be to "grandfather in" your customers who bought the devices with the prior to June 8th.. I for one would be open to helping you stay afloat and pay for a limited 1 year time but I am totally against subscription based software... please re-consider this decision...
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Our neighborhood of 300 homes is in a water district with outrageous usage rates. One of my neighbors introduced me to the Rain Machine a few years ago. I could easily be a salesman for this device, it cut our water bill by 30%. Now, 3 years later they want the owners to pay a premium for something that was once free. They are not providing anything we didn’t already have. I am a director on our community association board, I have touted the benefits of the RainMachine at every annual meeting of our homeowner’s association for the last 3 years. I am probably partially responsible for an addition 20-30 RainMachine sales. The way they are promoting this Premium service implies there is added value, when we will actually be paying for something we already paid for when we purchased the equipment new. This is highly unethical; I feel I have betrayed friends and neighbors in my community.
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Excellent - completely agree... I am a long term customer. I purchased your unit more than 5 years ago and I have referred my family and friends to you company as well because I really like the device. My suggestion is to grandfather in your legacy customers and apply your subscription model to new customers only.
In lieu of all of the inflation in the country today, I really dont need another bill - even if it is only 2.99 month.
For me personally, If you do not change your model - Im out and switching to your competitor.
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Agreed. I have been a customer for 6 years and the only reason I went with the Rain Machine was due to their cloud independence. Since then I have touted your products to my neighbors and community. I do understand business models can change, but don’t alienate your existing customer base in the process. I would potentially be fine with the direct access “work-around” but I’m doing so you lose the smart home integrations that were previously free. I purposely stay away from pay-to-integrate in anything else utilizing my ecosystem. Sadly, Father’s Day may be a good time to switch to a competitor.
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Same here. Been a customer since early 2015 and have re-purchased the newest unit as an upgrade since then. Love the device and the software. I might even be willing to pay $1/month but $3/month just feels disrespectful to the loyal customer base. Please reconsider this or at least entertain a discounted plan for grandfathered customers. As it sits now, I will likely be moving to another controller.
The Wyze Sprinkler Controller looks very comparable and I've been happy with most of their other products. Yes you do have to pay a subscription for the smart-weather scheduling but you get the first year free and it's $10/yr after that. My only issue is that it's only 8 zone and I have 10.
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True that... I have been using Rainmachine Touch HD for a while.. When I purchased the product, there was no mention of any subscription for the product and that was one of the main consideration for supporting the company and buying the product.. To change this for new customers maybe ok, but this feels very wrong for existing owners who helped during the company's initial periods. I hope that the company reconsiders the policy and provides a permanent exclusion from subscriptions for the life of the product, as when they were sold to the old/prior customers
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Amen, i had the original one back in 2013/2014 and was an advocator for multiple people in my neigborhood. i got duped once when i discovered that my original rainmachine didnt support alexa/ siri so i went ahead and upgraded. now i find that my $400 i gave you guys is not enough and you are going to gauge me again for more money.... whilst not watering on days its meant to be doing.... You lost a customer as im the kind of a-hole who will spend $200 on a new device to save spending another $30 because you guys screwed us...
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Trying to figure out why remote access is now a paid premium service. When I bought this, remote access was included. Bad business decision to make this a paid service now. Makes it impossible to recommend especially without any mention of what "new feature updates" might be. Seems very "vaporware" to me and just a money grab.
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https://rachio.com/rachio-3/ and they have a fathers day 15% discount.... and they dont charge you to use your own device.... i bought mine. anyone want a used rainmachine 12HD, i have one going for a great price.....
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It's definitely one thing if they rolled the premium out to new purchases. But to just paywall existing features under the guise of 'premium' with nothing of benefit added? I even tried the 'premium' support and you still can't even call a number to talk to someone. There's so many alternatives to smart sprinklers now. It seems like the absolute worst time to try and squeeze extra money out of current customers. I regret recommending this product to so many people and will definitely not buy another one of these again. Hopefully someone comes up with a homebrew firmware and then maybe some of the bugs will actually get fixed.
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I sadly once owned a skydrop. They first started having crappy support to their buggy device. They kept promising fixes that never appeared. Then they started charging for previously free remote service. Then they went out of business. W everything everyone here is saying now was said a few years ago on skydrop forums —and no, no grandfathering occurred—this is the last gasp of a dying company
I discussed all of this with RM before buying. They swore that would never be them. But their support has become crappy, and now they’ve started charging. Their products are no longer carried in big box stores. I’ve been here before. We are all about to have bricks on the wall of our garages in the next 6-12 months. There are two bright spots here
1. These people will go out of business as a recession hits—karma
2. Rachio is having a Father’s Day sale right now
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@pilotboy72 they’re doing it now bc they’re desperate to make $ and they know that taking away remote control in the summer, when watering is an issue and people are on vacation, will extort some into joining for a year rather than deal with not being able to have remote access. Then if they follow Skydrop’s business model—which they seem to be doing—after squeezing the last few dollars out of customers they will go under after posting a “sorry” announcement on their website
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So here's my take. I'm on my second RainMachine, and probably won't buy another one when this one fails. But, I'm not going to go switch brands. I have my unit, and I'm not going to spend money on another one as long as this meets my needs. RainMachine won't care at this point if I switch brands. I'm not buying the yearly services from RainMachine, and putting a stake in the ground saying that I'm not going to buy their annual service doesn't change our relationship -- they've already got my money and switching doesn't really hurt them. This new approach will make new customers (or customers buying a new unit from RainMachine) think twice about spending money with RainMachine, but then, new customers know this going in.
The idea of paying a premium for new features is really not accepted practice today. It used to be that when you shipped software that was it -- you tested the heck out of it and shipped it when it was ready. Today, it is expected that new features supported by hardware will be included mostly for free for most devices, and the idea of having to pay for new features, and perhaps bug updates, just isn't common. There will have to be a pretty killer "new feature" to warrant subscribing, and let's be honest, RainMachine hasn't really had a big new features in years.
I understand that cloud infrastructure costs money to maintain. I have no idea how much this costs RM, but $29.99 a year sounds a bit excessing for the server load generated by one customer. From what I remember, however, the unit was advertised as having free remote access for the life of the device. As for the device being cloud independent, they gave the example of them going out of business, not charging for the service. Seems like this could be a big hole in their strategy, and could expose them to serious risks.
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@Pilotboy72 I’m not under any illusions that me switching will hurt RM but I’ve been down this road with skydrop. They’re charging in a last desperate attempt to get $ before going under, at which point the “premium” subscription will be worthless and the controller won’t be much better. I need remote access bc my controller hasn’t been trustworthy since the box was opened. Tech kept promising the problem would be fixed with next update until literally the week after warranty expired then they suggested I buy a new one. So without remote access mine is useless.
Because I’d had the experience with Skydrop getting worse and worse each year, support getting worse and harder to obtain, then charging then closing shop, tacking a “sorry” note to the website…I specifically asked about all of these things before buying a RM.
I’m buy a Rachio bc I know it’s a matter of months before this company goes under and I don’t want to be competing with everyone who trusted RM to get a new controller from another company
Since no stores actually carry RM anymore (just as they stopped carrying Skydrop), I don’t think they’re worried about losing new customers, they’re just trying to squeeze the last few dollars out of current ones before tacking a “sorry, we tried” announcementBeen there before
https://www.skydrop.com/open-letter-to-skydrop-community/ -
I’m going to hold out and keep my Pro-16 running up to mid-October when our HOA shuts blows out the lines at the end of our irrigation season. I do have two backup units on order taking advantage of Father’s Day sales, one is the Rachio and the other is the Orbit B-Hyve XR. Should RM bite the dust over the winter months, I’ll swap it out with one or the other in the spring before the irrigation season starts.
Anyone look at the Orbit B-hyve XR and have thoughts on it? -
I agree with all the frustration here. It's clear that RainMachine is taking a similar route as SkyDrop. The lack of transparency in both announcements of premium offerings is clear, but I find RainMachine's much more egregious. At least SkyDrop seemed slightly apologetic in their announcement, whereas RainMachine made it seem like we were lucky to be offered this "new" service. RainMachine's announcement was just downright condescending and insulting. SkyDrop did eventually reveal the underlying factors that led to the "premium" service, but it was clearly too little, too late. I actually don't know how long of a time there was between the two announcements since SkyDrop didn't date their blog posts.
That said, there's a huge difference between the two situations. With SkyDrop, the device was completely neutered. Without paying, not only did you lose some of the weather functions, but you couldn't manage the device...at all. Apparently, they were kind enough to let you view your device's setup (while their cloud services still functioned); how generous. RainMachine, on the other hand, still retains full functionality. In fact, this situation highlights exactly the reason I choose the RainMachine; no reliance on the company to continue to function (unless they purposely brick it before going under).
I will not be paying for the premium service, as I am insulted by the way the situation was handled. Had they been transparent, and stated the obvious reason for doing this (losing money due to no devices to sell due to chip shortage), that could have drastically changed many people's perception, including mine. Had there even been even the slightest bit of remorse for having to go this route, that would've softened the blow for many.
All that said, buying another sprinkler controller isn't beneficial for me, as the RainMachine works fine for my two locations (and should continue to do so). In fact, getting a different one would literally be defeating the purpose of my having gotten it to begin with; that being no reliance on the company to function. In fact, I find it funny all the folks switching to Rachio. I forsee them eventually charging as well. However, being fully cloud dependent, that device really will be a brick when you don't pay. I find it even more amusing that a particular user here gripes about how their SkyDrop cloud-dependent device became a brick...but is then going to Rachio, another fully cloud-dependent device, which will likely become a brick at some point. I guess some folks don't learn.
Ultimately, if you're willing to put in a small bit of work, you can still absolutely access your RainMachine remotely. As said in another thread, it's not secure enough to put directly on the internet, so you'll need to connect to your local network via something like a VPN. This is totally doable if you're willing to put in a bit of effort. And, if you have a regularly changing internet IP address, there's multiple free dynamic DNS services out there to choose from.
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This caught me completely off guard, out of town on a business trip, got the lawn serviced so I needed to run the system but now I need a "Premium" subscription. Everyone wants our hard-earned money in monthly installments, not grandfathering is an offense to all of us that jump in and gave Rain Machine a chance. Do they care? Of course not, greed over customer satisfaction. I set up port forwarding while I look for alternative to send my unit to the recycle bin. Wondering how many class action law firms might be sharpening their pencils.
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I completely agree. I have used this thing for 4 years now flawlessly. I only water from may to october. To pay a yearly fee is ridiculous. We should be grandfathered in. I am moving to rachio as well. I will not pay a monthly fee for something this ridiculous. I will also tell my entire development about this and not to get a rain machine. I have 60 houses all with irrigation systems and have talked up rain machine to them, not anymore. So sick of being nickle and dimed by these companies. They want everything in our lives to be subscription based. I am done with it already.
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@bredlich - I'm with you!! I just bought a Rachio to replace my Mini 8 I've had since 2017. Worked great until they introduced this "Premuim" service. Not sure if it's a coincidence, but now the programs are not kicking off at the scheduled times. It took 1/2 my lawn turning brown before I realized what was going on. I contacted support & got crickets in response.
Re-sodded my lawn, left a scathing review on Amazon & put in a Rachio ... hope RainMachine company goes down in flames in pulling this on loyal customers. (super hard not to leave an expletive ladened comment here!!)
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Charging for a subscription is something that is common and nothing you can think is strange. But in this case, I have made a choice of product based on the fact that it is not a subscription but I pay for the product and then everything is included. Now you are removing functionality we already had and are expected us to pay for it! Possibly on a voluntary basis, you could ask your customers to support your business if you have now run out of money. Changing the basic conditions now is dishonest for existing customers and companies that cannot be trusted will not remain for a very long time. Think again, do the right thing! You lost my trust.
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Meet my new paperweight, works great with no subscriptions. The email from RM about why a subscription and why no grandfathering made the decision easy. I had it already setup with port forwarding and it was working fine but that sentence on the email telling port forwarding is "not as easy to configure" made me unplug it right away. I set up port forwarding in 15 seconds and I'm sure most of you can too. They forget that smart home devices are not yet consumer friendly and those of us that use them have the skills to make things work. Long story short, I'm already out and I'm sure I'm not the last person leaving RM.
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Just for kicks.. I checked amazon to see what price they are selling it at.. and guess what !.. they don't sell it on amazon anymore !!... searching for "rainmachine" doenst bring up anything !!!.. I had to go to my orders to find it.... Further .. looking at recent reviews of the devices.. the top recent 20+ reviews.. ALL are 1 star.. talk about backlash ! I hope.. really hope for Rainmachine's sake that they backtrack all this negative publicity.. accept their mistake.. ( which seems unlikely now due to their main model of making money by selling hardware is impacted by chip shortage) if they wish to stay alive and figure out a way to make money without skewering their existing customer base...... Providing a ddns service for remote access is extremely cheap.. saying that it costs a lot of money for that is just plain lies ! To keep developers and add new functions etc is most likely expensive.. and since main source of income.. selling hardware has probably been hit extremely hard by chip shortage. so thats why even on amazon, it shows "currently unvailable" ...they are trying to generate a new income stream... so this seems like a last ditch effort .. for money grab,, getting $30 per year from all their customers to keep their developers around... for fixing existing issues and not that much innovation seems like a poor idea.. but oh well... I am ok, for now to let the rainmachine device run for as long as possible (with port forwarding and local access) and extract as much value as possible from my sunk cost.. when the device stops working... will try to switch over to something at that point in time.. but HELL NO.. to paying for any subscriptions to rain machine !!
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@mkduran87 funny that you mention your scheduled programs not running…just noticed my main grass schedule was deactivated. When I go to pull up my watering history all days are blank even though I know some programs have run the past few days. So much for it continuing to run as usual sans remote access…
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