RainMachine Mini-8, Cloud Independent, The Forecast Sprinkler, Wi-Fi Irrigation Controller, 2nd Gen

This controller is awesome. As you've probably read in the description, it monitors local weather and adjusts your watering schedule based on past and future rain amounts. It is INCREDIBLY easy to install. It took me about 30 minutes to replace the existing controller, including mounting with toggler drywall screws, wiring and configuration and test. No exaggeration! The RainMachine is feature packed! Some of the very cool features: Cycle and Soak - Automatically waters each zone a bit then cycles to another zone, then eventually comes back, maybe multiple times, to finish the total watering. This helps the water soak into the ground, rather than running off by watering the zone in one shot! Watering Restrictions - If you have a season or locality restrictions where you can't water on certain days, no need to re-program, just tell the device that you can't water those days. Remotely turn on/off zones - Because it works on wifi, no more running back and forth to the controller to turn off and on a zone to test sprinkler heads or repair them. Now you can do it with your phone while you're in the yard! Just watch out for the water! It also very easy to start zones on the controller itself if your irrigation company needs to make repairs or tests. Integration with Alexa - Haven't tried it yet, but like the "get of my lawn" idea some others have had. Seasonal adjustment - Allows to water up to 200% of your program in dry months. You pick how much % over 100 you want to allow. There are so many other details it considers, such as soil type, irrigation head types, slope of the terrain, etc, but I found that the calculated times for each zone were way off. Not sure what I missed there, so I went with the recommendation from my irrigation company when they started my original system. I would like to take a moment to talk about the use of weather data sources. One of the most promising sources of weather data is WUnderground. This service is potentially awesome because there are individuals that may have weather stations near your home in a suburban neighborhood, giving you hyper-accurate rain data. I found one station that is less than 1/4 mile from my house. If I use NOAA, then my rain data is based off of a location 30 miles away. Do note that the RainMachine software will average the data of the weather sources you use, so right now I'm strictly using WUnderground as my only weather source. We'll see how that goes, but it can be changed at any time. I've also installed WUnderground on my phone to monitor if Rainmachine is picking up the correct water data. It is a bit tricky to get the WUnderground service working properly. The device gives you instructions and you have to apply to be an API developer with WUnderground (instructions included for that as well). Don't panic, you don't have to be any kind of programmer. They just want to make sure you're not using their services for commercial use. You'll get a developer key which is needed to access the hyper-local data sources within the rainmachine app. Once you unlock WUnderground (do this through the rainmachine website, not the app), then you should pick one of those local weather stations near your house. I found this to be the most difficult part. Maybe it would be better finding this on a PC on the WUnderground website, because the WUnderground app was very slow at loading stations. So slow I thought it wasn't working at all. Good luck, but I think it's worth it. Like I said above, do this on the rainmachine website on a PC, not on your phone, you might have better success. It is already saving me money. A typical controller has a fixed schedule, so you have to manually manipulate it if it rains. Should you forget, which is easy to do... that's wasted money. We've just entered monsoon season in Virginia and while I've had this for about 2 weeks and set to water every day, I think it has only watered two days total! Why would you buy a new controller that doesn't have this automation capability? The price difference alone is negligible, but I would encourage anyone who doesn't need a new one to buy this anyway. You're going to save money!