Impressions & Suggestions re: 3.0 Update

Rachio

Thank you for the recent iOS update. I applaud all the time and effort which went into this. The new functionalities are very helpful.

I have been a long time user and highly recommend your product. I do feel, however, that the UI design still does not take into consideration how the app is generally used by most residential customers.

Once a user has setup up all their zones and schedules, there are really only a few reasons to open the app. In order of importance, they are:

  1. set a Rain Delay
  2. start a Manual Run
  3. Pause & Resume
  4. Modify a schedule or zone
    (I could possibly add: Check Weather. While it may be helpful for some, I usually hear a weather report somewhere else, and then need to open the app to make a schedule adjustment.)

However, not one of the 3 most common activities are available on the home screen.

  1. In the case of Rain Delay, it is buried in the “More” tab.
  2. Manual Run requires multiple clicks to get to the appropriate screen.
  3. I could not find any knowledge article on how to Pause a currently running program although I assume that the Quick Run screen would indicate a pause feature while a zone is running.
  4. While “Schedule” is indeed a menu item on the Home page, it takes multiple clicks to modify the Interval and Times. (Also, it would be so much more efficient to have Interval and Time on the same screen because they are most often set together.)

The icons on the More screen for “Delay” and “Standby” are great examples of what should be on the Home screen. It would allow the user to immediately go to the most used functions. If there were icons for Manual and Pause as well, the app would be so much more useful.

Finally, the Weather Forecast takes up way too much real estate on the Home screen. And, the most glaring problem with the Forecast is that it still does not include the Date Number. So, for example, when the Home page indicates a Rain Delay until 03/04, or Up Next indicates Mar 05, I have no idea when that is by looking at the Forecast. It has always been frustrating to have to look at a separate calendar to figure this out. It would be so simple for the date to be listed alongside the day.

1 Like

i assume that menu choices are partly reviewed by statistics of user types (ergo: not what people say and want, but what they actually use)?
design which is action oriented (few steps), is helpful. API often do offer custom organization for webbased platforms (eg wordpress), maybe mobile api apps have such customization too? place you favorite actions on top… let like browsers, the app suggest most used option on the home menu/quickmenu… etc