Smart irrigation systems-so many options!
 

We are upgrading our irrigation system to a smart irrigation system, but wondering what everyone’s experiences has been with with the orbit B-Hyde six zone (even though only have 3 zones) or the Hunter Hydrowise or Rachio 3?
I want to be able to control from anywhere, but I also wanted to be able to detect if I have a water leak. It looks like the Hunter Hydrowise has that option to alert you, but you have to buy a special flow meter for $133.
Do the other systems have a flow meter to detect a leak? Has anyone use another Wi-Fi flow meter for to detect an early leak?
I’ve looked at a lot of videos and not sure which one to order!

We have had the Hydrawise System for 4 years and are very happy with it. We are part-time and I totally can adjust the amount of time our different zones run, along with number of time/week. It has a pause feature you can ultilize, allowing the irrigation zone to run for a set amount of time then ‘pause’ for a designated amount of time, then resume for however many minutes programmed. This helps to eliminate or at least minimize the amount of water run off. We have a villa and I love this option.
You can check the amount of water used on your phone and see a monthly report on usage.
Ours was installed by AGI and their service has been top notch.

We have the Hydrawise also and are happy with it. A few things to note:

1. The wifi capability comes as a plugin module you need to purchase separately. Don't forget to get one.
2. I watched the installation and now wish I had done it myself - it was quite simple
3. Mine does not have a true flow meter. It will tell me how many minutes it told the solenoid to open but it doesn't know how much water went through it.
4. I needed to install a wifi extender in my garage. My unit is behind a metal door and the signal was not quite strong enough. YMMV

I have the Hydrawise. I like it.
i have comcast, router in my family room, I put a pod extender in the garage.

Only thing you can’t catch remotely was a bad sprinkler head - water shoots in the air. My neighbor told me about it. Although if you have home watch, give them access, have them run all zones once every month.

Leak Detection
 

Flume 2 Smart Home Water Monitor & Water Leak Detector.

We installed the Rachio 3 a few months ago…great piece of equipment, will pay for itself quickly in water savings. Just attend the Tempest weather station. The next project is the flow meter, going with the wired version.

We had one up North.
Great Unit.
Jus make sure it works with your meter.

I have a Rachio 3 as well and it paid for itself in the first six months. Uses local weather to determine whether to water. I told several other people about it and they all converted and are extremely pleased.

What flow meter will work with Rachio 3?
 

Wondering if you have researched what flow meter works with the Rachio 3?

We had the Hunter Hydrawise and hated it. Had it replaced with the Rainbird controller. The app for the Hunter was just terrible.

AGI gets communication from our system. (We signed up for it) They are instantly notified if there is a spike in usage (flow meter equipped) and have called us to tell us they are on site same day replacing a sprinkler head.

Rachio is the way to go
 

Rachio installs in 10 minutes and everything is run with your phone. Uses weather station info for skip days. Works great $100 on sale sometime in Amazon.

Sprinkler
 

I have the b-hyve, like it a lot

I have the b-hyve for about a year now. Works great. Inexpensive. Good app. Not really noticing savings but I think that has to do with the prior Hunter one being set too low. I like the remote access control I have now especially when we're gone for the summer. I don't think any sprinkler controller alone will let you know of a broken head. I think you need a separate flow monitor.

I’ve used the b-hyve in my last 3 homes. I have also switched 6 friends homes over to it. 5 mins to physically switch over and then another 30 mins on setting up the phone to configure it.

Don’t get a unit that you have to buy a wifi module to get it to work with your phone. The “wand” wifi module for the hunter unit sucked and it cost almost $150 just for the module. When you buy a wifi module, you are putting lipstick on a pig, meaning you are trying to convert a manual controller to an automated 1, the b-hyve is a smart controller from the start.

As for saving money, the b-hyve will save you a lot of money ONLY if you use a personal weather station near you or you get a PWS in your backyard that uploads your data to weather underground.

Most all users of these smarter controllers hook their system to the closest county weather station which could be 10 miles away, maybe 5. If that’s the case, it might as well be 1000 miles away. The PWS or county weather station that’s closest to me is 1.5 miles away and during a few storms, they got rain and we didn’t, or vise versa. So when your controller goes into weather delay due to weather station prediction of 1” rain coming, you might not get a drop, or you just got a downpour but the weather station didn’t get any rain, your sprinkler will go off as planned. Buy a nice weather station for your backyard for around $150 and then you will truly start savings $$$$

Highly recommend Rachio. Very easy to install. Weather monitoring and auto adjusting features are excellent. Remote operation and monitoring very easy and really good.

Replacement of old controller was a breeze.

The Orbit B-Hyve controller is a huge improvement over using a sprinkler controller that cannot be program, controlled, and monitored with your cellphone. Many years ago, I switched both 12 zone systems in Minnesota to the Orbit B-Hyve controllers. After we moved to Florida almost three years ago, I immediately replaced our old dumb controller with an Orbit B-Hyve.

In Florida, I now have three 12 zone and one 16 zone B-Hyve controllers. We have a lot of garden areas to irrigate. I currently have 26 zones deployed now, but I'll probably increase the zone count by another dozen in the future. The 12 and 16 zone models make the system more future proof, if you want to expand your zones in the future. The 16 zone model does not have a local control, only the cellphone or computer control. I only use the cellphone control because using the local control is a hassle, and inconvenient, compared to using the cellphone app.

The Orbit B-Hyve app had a number of bugs in the past several years, which I reported to Orbit. It took them a long time to fix the bugs. There is one known bug left to fix. Sometimes when looking at the historic watering, the last zone does not indicate that it ran, even though it did run.

The weather sensing doesn't work that great in Florida, compared to in Minnesota, because where it rains is much more irratic and inconsistent than in Florida. A local weather station would probably improve that problem. I bought a cheap weather station from Costco, that quit working in less than a year. I replaced the rain sensor, and it failed again a couple months later. I need to upgrade to a better quantity weather station.

I did have one of my Orbit B-Hyve controllers fail. The WiFi receiver intermittently failed, dispite a strong WiFi signal. Then the WiFi receiver failed completely. Then the Bluetooth receiver failed. Orbit gave me credit to buy a new replacement B-Hyve controller for free to fix the problem.

Overall, I'm happy with the B-Hyve controllers. I think a decent local weather station would improve the automatic rain delay accuracy.

Rachio flow meter
 

This is what I use.
Irrigation Flow Meter Products | Everydrop Technologies

I use to work part time installing sprinkler systems up north, and we have installed many units, and the best was the Rachio units. No call backs and they work the best. The new valve monitoring works great, and the weather stations are the best. Just MYO..

We use Rachio 3 - so easy to install, setup and use.

Agree! The Hydrawise kept losing its signal and was not user friendly. The app is just terrible. We switched to the Rachio3.

I have been using the B-Hyve for about 5 years yet and it works perfect. When we are gone during the summer I can adjust the watering if needed. They have lots of other products like leak detection but I don’t think that is for the irrigation system. Be-Hyve is very easy to set-up and usel

Rachio3 is the best. It's very easy to install, the automated weather works 99.9% of the time, you can purchase a separate flow meter to measure gallons of water and to detect leaks and the WiFi is strong enough to work through the metal door on the data box in your garage.

Regarding water leaks. When you install the Rachio3 with the optional flow meter you run each zone to calibrate how much water that zone is using at install. If you break a head, etc, and the system detects more water usage than what was calibrated, Rachio turns off that zone and sends you an e-mail notifying you of the problem. It will also detect leaks and send you an e-mail if one occurs.

In my opinion the optional flow meter will pay for itself for the cost of the water used with just one damaged sprinkler head going off just one time.

Been using a smart system by Wyze (part of their Smart Home series of products) for several yrs and haven’t had a complaint. Pretty much the same feature set as Racio, at a fraction of the cost! Worth a look for sure…….might fit your needs, might not, but definitely a solid product in that space. 👍

A Set
 

Rachio 3 controller
Tempest weather station
EveryDrop flow meter

Also:

Pressure regulated sprinkler risers with check valve
Rotary type sprinkler nozzles

We have the orbit B-Hyde
 

I have trouble with the wifi going out into the garage from the back of our house where the router is - because of living in a block construction courtyard villa. The system itself is great - but I'm not savvy enough to have needed this kind of a setup.

If your controller is within/behind a metal door, you might try leaving that open.

I bought a simple netgear extender (EX 2800) that I placed in the garage. It can see the wifi signal from my router and being in the garage, its signal is strong enough to get inside the metal box. I configured it to use the same SSID as my router so that I only have a single SSID for all my devices.

Even if you don't use the app to control it, the system might get weather information from the internet (most do) to decide when to cut back on watering times. This is the feature that saves money.

I installed a Rachio 3 pro version about 1 month ago. The pro version is the same as the regular version but has a 4 year warranty. I purchased from the link below. They sell the 6 zone Rachio 3 Pro (6ZULWC-PRO) for $137 delivered. They also have bundles with flow sensors but I did not investigate that.

I did the installation myself, and found it easy and fast. I have the Rachio app on my ipad. It is mounted in my garage (where my old Hunter unit was), and I have had no issues with wifi. The app is very well constructed and easy to use.



Rachio R3 6-Zone Indoor Pro Series Smart Wi-Fi Irrigation Controller (6ZULWC-PRO) | Backyard Landscape Supply

I have the Orbit B-hyve and love it. It saves so much water and keeps the yard looking great.

Exactly where on the nonpotable irrigation system should the wired EveryDrop flow meter be installed? Before the valve box and above ground?

I have 2 rentals in TV I have switched to B-Hyve. By far the cheapest and easy to install. Love it. Use less water now and my lawns look much better. Great to be able to adjust on the fly without being there. Have NEVER lost connectivity from Wifi so that is huge. $99 on Amazon - so the choice is easy.

Smart Irrigation
 

Have the B-hyve, works great, easy to control from phone app.

What is AGI ?