Rachio Iro Smart Irrigation Controller Integration

I wanted to let the community know that at Rachio we are building a device type for our smart irrigation controller.

Here are our current capability attributes and commands. Let us know if you would like to see anything else!

capability.irrigationController

Attributes:

zones
scheduleRules
controllerStatus - [“online”,“offline”]
name
wateringStatus

Commands:

startZone(string)
rainDelay(number)
stop()
startScheduleRule(string)
skipScheduleRule(string)
pause()
resume()

Thanks and have a great day.


Franz Garsombke
CTO
franz@rach.io

14 Likes

You’ve just locked in Rachio as my top choice for a smart irrigation controller. Now I just have to wait for the MN winter (which began early this week) to end… :smile:

1 Like

Thanks Carson, we are in Colorado and didn’t get hit as hard as the rest of the country :smile:

Let us know if you have any features that are not listed.

Thanks again and have a great day!

Awesome. I installed one this year.

I’d like the ability to pause & resume watering.

Use case is someone leaving/entering the house.

This is fantastic, especially because I just installed a Rachio two months ago. I would love to have an attribute for the rain sensor on my house. Being able to poll and get this information from the Iro would drastically assist other rain-related smart apps I’m working on. Thanks!!

Love it! Pause and resume is a great request, one we have had before, and in our backlog. I love this feature since there is no WiFi sprinkler controller in the world that can do this. Will start working on this today :smile:

Ah, good request. To see if your physical rain sensor is triggered or not?

1 Like

Exactly, @franzgarsombke.
Right now in order for my house to know if it’s raining it has to poll WeatherUnderground and go through that whole thing. It’s 95% good but let’s face it: a physical rain sensor that’s already on my house will always be 100% accurate. So if the Iro can provide that data as an event or poll or however it’s exposed, that would rock.

Also another vote for pause and resume watering. We sometimes get short rains that last only a couple minutes but I’d enjoy the watering resume where it picked up instead of waiting an entire day or more.

Thanks!

@macstainless Ok, understood. It will be really easy to push the on/off events of the rain sensor, but asking our API if it is on/off is much harder(not possible) since we don’t really capture ‘state’ for the sensor. We will plan on pushing those events, along with schedule/zone start/stop events if the SmartThings ecosystem is capable of those types of things.

Definitely building out pause/resume watering :smile:

1 Like

@franzgarsombke I have been looking at replacing my vintage museum quality Richdell for the next spring (as the sprinklers are already winterized for this winter) and glad that you guys are building a device type.

If the integration goes well, then it is a no brainer for me and I am holding off on my purchase of RainMachine. :slight_smile:

@smart Ron, glad to hear! Note on the RainMachine it is not cloud based, and will never be able to have an integration with SmartThings or a publicly open API or an IFTTT channel. I think it is a good product for people that want a stand-alone smart controller. On the plus side, it won’t send you push notifications late at night that your sprinklers are running, but some people want that :smile:

1 Like

I only have 4 zones. Have the common wire. Which model would you suggest? I am going to grab that unless you are planning a newer model between now and next spring. :wink:

Have been waiting for this and was about to write the device type myself… Have had my Iro rocking for a while now and look forward to porting some of my ST apps to utilize the Iro instead of switches/outlets with 24v transformers for a variety of things! When do you expect to have the device type available? Will there be any way for manual start for x-minutes? That would be very helpful and useful - for automated fertilizing for instance. I have the fertilizer tank connected to a valve that is in-line that I only want to have come on once a week for instance. Any chance of being able to open two valves at once? Or separately turning on the “master” valve only for certain instances or times?

Thanks!

Cooper

Ron - get on of the Rachio Iros and you’ll be happier I would get the 16 as the cost difference is negligible… You can integrate it with ST (with new device type) and with FlowerPower via IFTT… You can then use more valves and connect each of your specific plant types to allow for more accurate watering and fertilizing… Plus you will get to spend more time in your garden hooking it all up and watch your success “bloom”…

:slight_smile:

@smart We are building a generation 2, but I can’t promise to any dates. For the features you are looking for, our current 8 or 16 zone models will work fine.

If you want a good deal, we have this campaign running:

https://rach.io/factory-renewal

Thanks!

@cooperglee We are starting to build out the device type this week. I know better to promise dates, but I can’t see it taking that long. Out of our control would be the approval/submission process. I will be sure to ping this forum when we are code complete on our end, and could probably use some beta testers :slight_smile: Definitely PM me (franz@rach.io) if you want to beta test.

Yes, definitely start a zone for x-minutes, or trigger a predefined schedule to start (which you could disable in our webapp) and only call in an adhoc manor.

In our backlog is the ability to associate the master valve to particular zones, that will get done in the very near future.

Two valves at once is doable (we are actually releasing a fun feature called water hammer minimization in 1.8 which does have two valves open at once), it’s in the backlog, and will see where it lies in our list of priorities.

1 Like

Ok, guys making the pledge on the Iro (new one not refurbished) but will have to wait till spring as i can’t install it now coz the system has already been winterized and even if I buy one now will not be able to test it and if god forbid, if I get a bad unit… The return period will long be gone! There is already talk of snow in our area late this week or so. :frowning:

Hi Franz - contacted you thru e-mail. Very interested in this and would be happy to beta test the device type once you get it going!

Schedule pause/resume is working in the firmware and cloud API, so it will definitely be a capability on the device type :wink:

1 Like

You might also need to write a smart app to allow us to select motion/door etc sensors to pause/resume.