Iris Orbit Hose Faucet Timer

Has anyone else seen this product from Lowes. I think its the older Zigbee Version but i dont know for sure. I dont think it will work with ST but i wanted to ask around to be sure…I would love to find something like this that would work. Any ideas would be great… thanks.

Pretty sure it’s proprietary zigbee. Won’t work with ST

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Stay away from that device. Thread on it here:

It’s too bad, I would really a device like this which works.

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So far I have found nothing to fit this use case. PlantLink says they will have one soon. I would love to beta test it for them LOL but to the best of my knowledge there is nothing available today to fit this use case.

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Thanks for the links…

Yeah, stay away. The physical device fails to close the valve sometimes. Unrelated to SmartThings control. It just doesn’t close, so your yard could be very wet when you get home unless you are around to supervise it.

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I just moved to SmartThings from Iris. Version 1 Iris was pretty good. Version 2 sucks beyond belief, and they are forcing all users to migrate, shutting down Version 1 on June 30.

I have the Orbits Hose/Faucet timer. It worked great with Iris Version 1, did not work with Version 2. I was able to pair this to SmartThings hub. I then changed the device to a Smart Power Outlet, works. The only issue is you cannot program the device (to be stored in the device). However, since it appears as a power outlet in ST hub, you can set up “lighting” rules to turn it on and off based on a schedule, so while no optimal, works perfectly! :slight_smile:

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Tim, after using this for a few weeks, how is it working? Reliable? Thinking about experimenting with one of these, but have read mixed things.

A few things since I posted. I originally had this for the sprinklers around the flowers, set for 10 mins. A couple weeks later, it was getting hot, I moved to 20 mins. It stopped after 10 minutes every time. Apparently, when the faucet timer gets a signal from the hub to turn it on, it automatically set for 10 mins, regardless of what I set it to using a program. To get around that, I set it to turn on like normal, then set turned off at 10 mins, then turn on again and off after another 10 mins, which gave me my 20 mins. A little hassle, but at least it works.

Another item that sucks is once you pair it to SmartThings, you can’t manually turn on the water or set a program on the physical device. I don’t know why, but be aware if you buy and pair it, you can only turn on and off via SmartThings, and not from the device itself.

Also, I doubt this is related, but I have had a couple instances where I couldn’t remotely control any of devices (lights, water, thermostat, etc). I had to reset my hub. Sucked one time as I was on vacation, had to get a neighbor into the house to do it. Again, I doubt it is related, but wanted full disclosure.

In short, I don’t know if this a good investment versus the hassle. I already owned it when I jumped shipped from Iris V1 to SmartThings…

And for the record… LOWE’S VERSION 2 is a PIECE OF CRAP. Lol. Check out how pissed off this one dude is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMzbrRCZhdY

I’m still hoping someone writes a SmartThings program for this. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the update. Guess I’ll pass for now. It floors me that there’s no good solution for this for SmartThings…

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Thanks for looking into connecting the Orbit timer to ST. I have been using this timer with a Wink 2 hub for a while and it works very well. That hub took a lightning strike so I decided to try ST. I was able to pair the Orbit timer and then go to to the ST dev site (https://graph.api.smartthings.com/) and change the device to SmartPower Outlet, as you suggested. At this point, I finally see the device’s Execution Location as “Local” and not “Cloud”, but still cannot get Status to go ONLINE.
If anyone has suggestions, I would love to hear them! Maybe I’ll have to go back to the Wink system after they send my new hub in the mail.

What status does it show? My status for this is “Active” What does the column, last activity show? Mine has today’s date with a time.

Mine shows ACTIVE and also has today’s date and time as “Last Activity At”. Professordave, do you have one of these Orbit timers functioning with the ST hub?

Some devices say online; and some devices say active.

Yes, if the orbit device says active it is working. I do not think these devices are supposed to say online.

You can turn them on and off, if you turn them on, they stay on for 10 minutes.

However, when they turn off, they do not push the off status. It seems that I have to hit the refresh button.

Others here claim when the device turns off it pushes the off status to smartthings.

After pairing and connecting with the custom orbit dht I switch it to the smart power outlet dht.

When running with the smart power dht the device runs locally instead of in the cloud and is therefore more reliable.

I have created an updated dth supporting both switch and valve for this:

added commands to set a duration of running (either in ST dth UI, or using webcore)

The webcore command would be runfor(minutes)

Hmmm. This looks like I might try it since you made a dth for it. How has it been working for you?

I use it daily.

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Why don’t you make your own? All you need is an electric solenoid valve and smart relay like the Fibaro one. I hear those plastic battery timer ones rarely last longer than a year.

Thanks for the DTH.
It works great.
However I can’t find right code for “runfor” for WebCore.
Can you, please give an example?
Thank You