I’ve finally configured my garden and landscaping on drip irrigation, but I’m using some dumb valves hooked up to my house hose spigot.
I would absolutely love a smart valve that I can have better control of the schedule, or respond to sensors.
After some looking around, it seems like “Rachio” is the only integration I can find for something like this. It’s a bit pricy ($99 per valve), and it looks like it needs a wifi hub to work. Has anyone used this integration successfully?
Is there any other options? There seem to be lots of “Bluetooth” controllers available in the big box stores, but I’m guessing they will need an app or something?
They have been running drip irrigation for my raised beds for a couple of weeks now. Their wifi is kind of weak though, I needed to install an outdoor repeater to improve connection stability.
Edit: Using MQTT the valves appear als simple switches in home assistant and are easy to automate.
I had to use some adapters to fit it to my system - the top fresh water connection is a 1" outside diameter (with an adapter to 3/4" inside diameter thread) and the bottom outlet is a 1/2" outside diameter thread with a Gardena (used a lot in Europe and Germany) style quick connect adapter included.