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Horrible local network or direct access from iPhone or desktop

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WpBacon

I have a Touch-HD 16 machine. Like many others, the local networ/direct access has never worked and I've always used a remote access because it did work. There is no way I'm paying for remote access. I'd rather set the rainmachine on fire and buy from you competitors.

My home network is more complicated than most but the machine is on my default vlan which is the same as the devices I'm trying to use to connect to it. However, the iPhone is on a different wifi ssid. When I switched it the same ssid, I could connect by browser but never in the app. I can see it has a connection from my unifi router. When using the app, the machine sporadically shows up under local network but disappears before setup is complete. Trying direct access just results in a spinning wheel. I've tried different iterations of http and https with ports 8080, 8081 and 443. All had the same results. From Firefox on a desktop, none of the address iterations connects. Can't ping the ip-address either. The lack of support for a chronic issue is mind boggling. The only reason this feels new to you guys is because we've always had the remote access option which worked very well.

Oddly, I run Home Assistant for my automations and the rainmachine integration is able to connect and control the machine using the ip-address:8081 but it lacks integrated graphs for water used. I think the flow amount is not sent to or stored properly by Home Assistant. Also, I can't alter the programs through Home Assistant.

Any help is appreciated. This is my last ditch attempt to make this work. Otherwise, I'm off to Rainbird or Open Sprinkler.

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    RainMachine Support

    Hi,
    We're sorry about the experience you have.
    The reason for your issues could be that when you installed the RainMachine iOS app on your iPhone you maybe did not agree with the requirements of the app to access your local network. This is one of the 3 requests that the app has to make and you have to agree or not. The other two are location access and mobile push notifications.
    If you choose not to agree to let the RainMachine app access your Local Network, then, your RainMachine device would not be automatically discovered and listed on the DEVICES screen.

    To check that the Local Network access is allowed for the RainMachine iOS app, please do the following:
    - open your iPhone Settings - Privacy - Local Network - RainMachine - ON
    - open RainMachine iOS app - tap on upper left menu button - Network Settings - Local Discovery - ON

    As you mention, the iPhone and the RainMachine has to be connected on the same local Wi-Fi network, same IP class, same Gateway in order for UDP Discovery to work. It doesn't work automatically if they are not on the same network.
    If you want to force that, you can add your RainMachine Touch HD-16 local IP using the Direct Access feature:
    - open RainMachine iOS app - tap on upper left menu button - Network Settings - Direct Access - Add device (+) - enter its name - enter https://192.168.100.100:8080 (where 192.168.100.100 is your RainMachine Touch HD-12 local IP address) - save. Go back to DEVICES screen and tap on your RainMachine name. If the password screen shows up it means that you can access your RainMachine device.

    To find out your RainMachine Touch HD-16 local IP address you can tap on the device screen Settings button, then System, then Updates & Restore and look on the screen for its local IP.

    Hope that helps.
    Thank you
    RainMachine Support

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    WpBacon

    My mistake. I forgot to mention, that I've deleted and reinstalled the iOS app and made sure to allow network access. If you read my post completely, you would see it would show up but not complete the setup before being lost. For it to show up, I would have to have allowed network access. Also, why are you providing instructions on how to use Direct Access if I've stated that I've tried Direct Access with multiple iterations of the ip-address:port and your instructions are incorrect, at least on my network. The only address that works from any device is HTTP://, NOT HTTPS://, and port 8081, NOT 8080. I've read several other posts on the same issue and RainMachine's response is always the same. The lack of appropriate auto-discovery is annoying but not a big deal if Direct Access works. Direct access doesn't work and that is a deal-breaker.

    My problem may, in part, be with my network firewall rules but I wish the tech support and RainMachine, in general, were more helpful, knowledgable, and personable in their responses.

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