Rachio Gen 3 Hardware release, Homekit Support For Gen 2 still Coming?

@designzguy - I don’t think Rachio is waiting for iOS 11.3, although it did add software based authentication to Homekit. Rachio has said that Apple needs to publicly (not in beta) release the Sprinkler profile. I just looked on Apple’s Homekit page and Sprinklers and Faucet profiles aren’t mentioned yet, nor did I see those profiles mentioned in the release notes for iOS 11.3.

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I can switch each zone on/off from whitin Homekit using our Apple devices. Even use the Homekit scheduler.
To get this working I use a combination of software.
Home Assistant
Homebridge
IFTTT

No problem to share my setup files etc.

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Never MInd! Just saw you started a new thread with the info!

Can you share them? I just starting using homebridge. I connected it to my smartthings hub, but the homebridge plugin for smartthings doesn’t know sprinklers (they are custom Rachio devices actually). I’d be very interested to see how you have this working

Homekit support in Rachio maybe could be close?

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Interesting. Future ship date (June 25th), but their product description is 100% HomeKit.

Was hoping that with the new iOS release today, Apple would have updated their HomeKit page to show the Sprinkler and Faucet profile, but it’s still not there yet. :confused:

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Maybe HomeKit updates will come at Apple’s 2018 WWDC event which occurs this coming Monday, June 4th.

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I still do not understand why people think Rachio needs HomeKit support, it runs at 4am on its own. The very few times per year I need to run it manually it really takes all of about 5 seconds to open the app and start watering manually. Sometimes it takes longer than that for Siri to first hear acknowledge I am attempting to get her to process a command, and then process what I said and make the command work. I use HomeKit for a lot of lighting controls and I have to admit I am still pretty new to it. How exactly would HomeKit make this device better?

My thinking exactly. The use cases are extreme and definitely not main stream. I have Smartthings for real “home automation” to automate things.

I also have google mini, alexa and home-kit (iPhones) but I don’t consider them home automation as I have to say something to them or take an action - they are just fun to have.

Our local water utility publishes a recommendation of the inches of water that is needed for the next week. I could automate fetching that number, divide by three and have it irrigate that amount of water over three waterings during the week. In the late spring I could subtract the amount of rain from the occasional rain shower and only water enough to supplement rainfall.

@paul -

^that is what Rachio does by looking at the specific (not wide area generic) climate characteristics. Also, shrubs, tree and flowers will have different water needs than grass.

^that may not be the right way to water as it could lead to shallow roots, versus longer watering times with more days between.

Just saying.

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How exactly would HomeKit support help with this?

To my knowledge, HomeKit does not fetch data (from your water utility) and does not have the ability to make decisions (divide by 3). What you are describing sounds closer to an IFTTT string, but I’m not even sure if that would work. HomeKit is basically for telling Siri what to do. Telling Siri to fetch data and divide by three is more complicated of a task than Siri can do at this time.

Released. Products for sale
On Apple website. What’s the word?


Hey Siri®, tell everyone that the Rachio 3 now supports HomeKit™.

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What about the thousands users with Rachio 2???
Drop the mic huge too?

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So what about Gen 2 support?

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Hey @Estevan and @mjpviv,

We were so bummed about this. Our engineering team worked for a year and a half to try and make it so HomeKit would be compatible on the Generation 1 and 2, but unfortunately, neither had enough memory to allow it to work.

We are offering a $30 discount for those who would like to upgrade to the Rachio 3! Just use the code HomeKit30 at checkout.

:cheers: Lo

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Why don’t you offer a trade in for the users who bought the version 2? As a matter of fact, many people bought the version 2 because rachio fed our thoughts that there would be HomeKit compatibility

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A trade up program has been something we’ve considered and will continue to consider. Unfortunately, at this time we don’t currently have such a program. Although, we have seen a lot of users have great success selling their current controller to a friend or on Ebay!

This is disgusting. You people baited us saying gen 2 would support now its gen 3.

Time to sell this pos for a competitor. $30 off thats insulting after all the lies.
You should do a free trade up program for existing customers and suck up the loss.

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You guys definitely made us believe gen 2 was HomeKit compatible…all that we were waiting was for Apple to release its API. Gonna be a lot of angry gen 2 owners.

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It might be time to start the #breakyourrachio challenge on instagram after all these lies your company pushed out.
This is so insulting. A year and a half and no gen 2 support, time to fire those engineers.