Rachio has been out for a while now… it’s clearly a market leader and works beautifully, for me anyway, thus far. When are are we going to see a plug-in?
When either you or someone who owns and has the skills to make a plugin creates one. Many if not all plugins were created because the developer owns that particular device and had the time and skills to create it. The fastest way to see it happen is to roll up your sleeves and start tinkering.
- Garrett
I wish I had the ability to write it but sadly, no. However, I am all about getting as much info to the people that can. The API for the Rachio is publicly available online at the following link. Maybe this will help persuade someone to tackle this.
While I’m at it, might as well mention this as well in case you are not familiar with it. BlueSpray make a similar controller and its API is also available . Here is a link to the forum discussion.
would love a plug in for this as well. We just installed a system and so far it’s great! The one addition I’d like to have is the installation of soil moisture sensors to provide better feedback to the device, but need vera integration for this.
You can probley just use HTTP commands to do what you need without using a plugin. What exactly are you trying to do with it in vera? I have open Sprinkler (great unit for half the cost) and it has a plugin. But I haven’t found much use of the plugin. I thought if there was motion on my grass and I wasn’t home I could filp on the sprinkler to chase the mail man off. But in reality there wasn’t much use if any to having vera tied to the sprinkler controller.
Ideally I’d like to make sensors to detect soil moisture using the instructions at mysensors.org. Goal was to have them read through vera and be able to send alerts if soil was too dry or over saturated and skip or add a watering cycle automatically on the rachio. Guessing there may be an easier way to do this, but I’m a little clueless on the programming front, so have been trying to do as much as possible through solutions which are more plug and play (somewhat…).
There is an easier way to do this, which is to have the soil sensors communicate directly with the irrigation controller without involving Vera. The Rachio has unfortunately not been designed to connect directly to soil sensors, but according to this thread on Rachio’s support forum:
… they seem to be interested in developing integration with some of the existing soil sensor systems.
There is an easier way to do this, which is to have the soil sensors communicate directly with the irrigation controller without involving Vera. The Rachio has unfortunately not been designed to connect directly to soil sensors, but according to this thread on Rachio’s support forum:
… they seem to be interested in developing integration with some of the existing soil sensor systems.[/quote]
Interesting. I knew the sensors were on the roadmap, but hadn’t seen that thread. Would love to be able to use a DIY solution–all of the soil sensors I’ve seen are really expensive to use with any density. We just started using it, but pretty impressed with the product and service level from Rachio so far. Was considering Open Sprinkler, but wanted something easy that we didn’t need to troubleshoot too much. Still ended up with a few frustrating issues, but overall feel good about the product we went with.
I am still considering what system to buy. What were the frustrating issues you ran into with the Rachio?
I am still considering what system to buy. What were the frustrating issues you ran into with the Rachio?[/quote]
Sorry, just seeing this now. The biggest issue was that the Rachio connects via 2.4GHz, but not 5GHz. We have a time capsule we are using as a router, which supposedly broadcasts on both, but we could not get it working. We were having a major sprinkling system overhaul at the same time and the guy who was doing the controller install was pretty good with technical stuff (used to install comcast systems), but after several hours we gave up and he just installed a new comcast modem that we’d been putting off.
Other than this, the main problems were wiring ones–on these, I don’t know if the guy who re-wired the system screwed something up when transferring the wires, or if our old system had the same problems but wasn’t sensitive to it. My guess is the first. On this, Rachio was great–we called them on a Sunday morning and the rep helped us troubleshoot everything and pointed us in the right direction.
So far, all seems to be working well and it’s fantastic to be able to turn a zone on/off from the phone. We’ve had some weirdly long watering times that I need to look into, but I think it’s because it’s supposed to top 100 here, so the system is adjusting.
[quote=“Bones1117, post:3, topic:186630”]I wish I had the ability to write it but sadly, no. However, I am all about getting as much info to the people that can. The API for the Rachio is publicly available online at the following link. Maybe this will help persuade someone to tackle this.
http://rachio.readme.io/v1.0/docs[/quote]
+1 for the plugin.
btw is there instructions on how to write a vera plugin? if i have free time over some weekend i might give it a try (if no one has done it yet)
Edit: found it: http://www.mios.com/developers/become-a-mios-developer/
It looks like Nexia is now working with Rachio, so maybe there’s hope it will someday work with Vera.
http://z-wavealliance.org/smart-home-leader-nexia-emphasizes-reliability-over-novelty/
Also, check your local Home Depot. Rachio is on clearance in my area [Texas] for $187. That’s a steal! (as of 1/10/16)
UPDATE: (March 2, 2016) Rachio has released a 2nd generation sprinkler controller. An added feature: 16 zone size is now standard.
Thanks for sharing the inforamtion guys.It was helpful
[quote=“Mg9H, post:12, topic:186630”][quote=“Bones1117, post:3, topic:186630”]I wish I had the ability to write it but sadly, no. However, I am all about getting as much info to the people that can. The API for the Rachio is publicly available online at the following link. Maybe this will help persuade someone to tackle this.
http://rachio.readme.io/v1.0/docs[/quote]
+1 for the plugin.
btw is there instructions on how to write a vera plugin? if i have free time over some weekend i might give it a try (if no one has done it yet)
Edit: found it: http://www.mios.com/developers/become-a-mios-developer/[/quote]
Did you ever do this?
[quote=“Sammy2, post:15, topic:186630”][quote=“Mg9H, post:12, topic:186630”][quote=“Bones1117, post:3, topic:186630”]I wish I had the ability to write it but sadly, no. However, I am all about getting as much info to the people that can. The API for the Rachio is publicly available online at the following link. Maybe this will help persuade someone to tackle this.
http://rachio.readme.io/v1.0/docs[/quote]
+1 for the plugin.
btw is there instructions on how to write a vera plugin? if i have free time over some weekend i might give it a try (if no one has done it yet)
Edit: found it: http://www.mios.com/developers/become-a-mios-developer/[/quote]
Did you ever do this?[/quote]
Sorry just saw your msg now. Fortunately I never had time to pull it off.
[quote=“Mg9H, post:16, topic:186630”][quote=“Sammy2, post:15, topic:186630”][quote=“Mg9H, post:12, topic:186630”][quote=“Bones1117, post:3, topic:186630”]I wish I had the ability to write it but sadly, no. However, I am all about getting as much info to the people that can. The API for the Rachio is publicly available online at the following link. Maybe this will help persuade someone to tackle this.
http://rachio.readme.io/v1.0/docs[/quote]
+1 for the plugin.
btw is there instructions on how to write a vera plugin? if i have free time over some weekend i might give it a try (if no one has done it yet)
Edit: found it: http://www.mios.com/developers/become-a-mios-developer/[/quote]
Did you ever do this?[/quote]
Sorry just saw your msg now. Fortunately I never had time to pull it off.[/quote]
Thanks for the feedback…
I’d be willing to take a pass at it. I’ve been looking to replace my ancient Rainbird controller anyway.
So tell me, of all the things Rachio can do and the information it can give you, what would the basic requirements be for a first version of a plug-in? Obviously turn individual stations on (for time) and off, and see their status, but what else?
[quote=“rigpapa, post:18, topic:186630”]I’d be willing to take a pass at it. I’ve been looking to replace my ancient Rainbird controller anyway.
So tell me, of all the things Rachio can do and the information it can give you, what would the basic requirements be for a first version of a plug-in? Obviously turn individual stations on (for time) and off, and see their status, but what else?[/quote]
From my POV (2 Rachios and 2 Vera3s running UI5) it would be great to have each zone on each Rachio appear in vera as a standard switch so i can turn them on/off using HomeWave. My Rachios handle the scheduling so I don’t need vera to do that (and if i did i could use scenes to schedule them). So MVP features for at least 1 user 
are:
[ol][li]Support for 2 Rachios on 1 Rachio Account[/li]
[li]Standard switch device for each zone to turn the zone on/off[/li]
[li]UI5 support[/li][/ol]
I would be happy to help test (and donate $) if that would be of interest.
Thanks!
-mda
OK. Rachio has been ordered. It begins…