For the past decade I have used the original Rainmachine with touch screen as my irrigation controller. The past few years I’ve been waiting for Rainmachine to release a new version but now see they discontinued all their hardware which likely means they went out of business.
It appears that Rachio 3 is the most popular irrigation controller but it is quite a few years old now and I’d hate to buy it just for the Rachio 4 to be released.
I’d like recommendations on what local sprinkler controller to buy that integrates well with HA. ESP32 based solutions would be great too as long as they are well polished solutions (nice case) and control at the device.
While tempting to solve it in HA, I really need this to work regardless of HA. If I am away from home, for example, and something happens to HA or connectivity, I need to know that the controller won’t miss watering the yard on the only 2 days a week it is usually allowed (Texas).
Reliably running the schedules was my reason for ‘going the Rachio Route’ - I live in AZ, so it’s equally as vital here.
Also: I tend to tinker with my HA setup in the evening hours (including restarts because I can’t do that while the solar panels are producing) and that’s when it would mess up watering automations.
BTW:
With ‘mostly’ I was referring to the HA Integration; the watering schedules themselves still run when the integration has an issue, I then just miss out on recording water usage (through Flume) when HA doesn’t know when the Rachio schedules actually ran.
ESPHome can run on hardware like mentioned above and it has an independent irrigation scheduler that can operate without Home Assistant being available. I’ve been using it with the SONOFF 4 channel device for the past couple of years. Best of both worlds - you can make it run anyway you like with easy integration with Home Assistant, but rock solid reliability. There are several forum threads on how to achieve this.
@mterry63 - I have 50+ ESP32 devices around the house so I do love the idea, but right now I don’t have the bandwidth and the summer heat is approaching fast. Also, I try not to hardwire too much custom stuff so the day I have to sell the house, or I go to another dimension, the house will still be operable without an HA “degree”. All the ESP32 devices I have are “optional” in the sense that the house still functions without. All of my home is automated in the same spirit so that unplugging HA won’t prevent you from turning on a light, or controlling some critical device such as a thermostat or irrigation controller. But… it would really be strange to have to press those buttons on the wall so much more… or walk to the hardwired controls!!!
