Water Story: Philip Sperry

Philip Sperry
Suwanee, GA
Rachio user for 3 months



Q. What led you to purchase your Rachio Iro?
A. I love using technology to make my life simpler and more efficient. Iro was the natural choice to automate my irrigation system.

Q. How has the Iro changed your lawn/ landscape?
A. Iro keeps everything watered and green while saving 30%+ on water usage.

Q. Where is the best place you have controlled your Iro from?
A. My yard. It is super convenient to turn my sprinklers on and off while I adjust my sprinklers. Sidewalks do not require regular watering :-)

Q. What is your favorite feature of the Rachio app or webapp?
A. I am currently testing flex schedules, and it looks like it will result in big water savings. I also love that it can use my personal weather station which makes the whole thing work better, especially here in the south where showers are widely scattered.

Q. How has owning an Iro enhanced your understanding of your water use?
A. Greatly. Not just how much I use but how much I've wasted in the past.

Q. Do you have any other stories about the Rachio Iro you'd like to share?
A. I had no idea how often how often my sprinklers ran when it was not needed. I knew they sometimes ran when it was raining but rain delays have canceled over a third of my cycles so far.

Rachio PROfile with Kyle Scott

Kyle Scott
Scott Irrigation
Red Deer, Alberta
http://www.scottirrigation.ca/






Q. When was the first time you installed a Rachio?
A. I installed first rachio this June, found out about them through our supplier.

Q. What’s your favorite feature of the Rachio Iro?
A. The shared access feature is my favorite feature. It's so handy to use my phone to turn on particular zones at customer properties.

Q. What do you like about Rachio?
A. I like that the rachio is easy to install and program. I also like the compact design.

Q. Do your customers like Rachio?
A. For every rachio I have installed, I've had nothing but positive feedback. The customers like how user friendly they are.

Q. Has Rachio changed your relationship with your customers?
A. Rachio has gave us another irrigation option for our customers.

Q. How long have you been in business?
A. My father started the business 35 years ago.

Q. What’s your favorite aspect of landscaping or irrigation?
A. My favorite aspect of irrigation is installing a user friendly irrigation system for our customers' watering needs.

Understanding our water use

Water is one of our most precious natural resources. It’s also a substance we take a bit for granted in the United States.

The latest US water usage numbers estimate that as a country we use around 397,000,000 acre-feet of water per year. An acre-foot of water is how much water it takes to fill an acre of land with a foot of water. At 325,851 gallons per acre-foot, that’s 129,362,847,000,000 gallons per year, or 129.4 trillion gallons per year. That’s a lot of commas and a lot of water. But what does it cost for residential users?

Water prices vary dramatically across the country, and the highest prices aren’t always where you think (like California). According to Circle of Blue, in 2015, Atlanta and Seattle had some of the highest water prices in the country, where average monthly water bills can be in excess of $300. Water may be all around us, but making it drinkable, clean, and on demand can be challenging. Alternatively, reducing water usage by municipalities can also have negative ramifications for communities, as most communities and cities rely on revenue from water usage as part of annual budgets, and revenue is based on overall water usage.

Even if you want to change your water habits, it can feel overwhelming. Do you take shorter showers? Not flush the toilet? Wash your dishes less often? These are hard habits to change and sustain, and frankly, in most cases they are likely to fail. We like taking our showers, having a bath every once in a while, letting the water run while brushing our teeth, and for most communities, water prices are still quite cheap.

The one area where most households can dramatically impact water usage is outside of the home, in the yard.

As we’ve discussed over this past Smart Irrigation month, there are many techniques and tricks that you can use to keep your landscape looking great, while reducing overall water usage. From understanding evapotranspiration, to incorporating management allowable depletion as well as cycle and soak, landscape irrigation is ripe for improvement for most homes. Most folks don’t realize that on average, 59% of a household’s overall water use is outside the home, on things exactly like irrigation.

Understanding your water use is the first step in making a lasting impact on your water consumption, and there is a wealth of knowledge out there to improve your irrigation beyond the techniques we’ve discussed this past month. Keep checking on this blog for other tips and tricks, and enjoy your landscape!

Water Story: Rich Salkin

Rich Salkin
Omaha, NE
Rachio user for over 1 year




Q. What led you to purchase your Rachio Iro?
A. I heard about the Iro before it was available and thought that it was the best idea I've seen. I was looking for a replacement for my timer based controller for a while. I was getting frustrated having the sprinklers go off even though we just had a large rain storm. I liked the idea of a sprinkler controller being able to track rain fall amounts and decide if water was needed. After finding the Iro, I was hooked and pre-ordered it.

Q. How has the Iro changed your lawn/ landscape?
A. My lawn has never looked better! The back of my house faces south east and gets a lot of sun. It is also slightly sloped and never really greened up very well. It also turned brown in the late summer because of the sun and slope. My back yard improved dramatically after I installed the Iro.

Q. Where is the best place you have controlled your Iro from?
A. From work! Believe it or not! I planted some new grass seed and forgot to water that part of the yard. So I opened up the app on my iPhone and started that zone.

Q. What is your favorite feature of the Rachio app or webapp?
A. I like to make sure that my sprinkler heads are in good working order so I love the ability to walk around my yard and turn zones on or off from my phone. It's a lot easier to control the sprinkler system when you are right in the middle of the yard.

Q. How has owning an Iro enhanced your understanding of your water use?
A. Seeing the amount of water that was saved simply by knowing how much rain we've received or how much is forcasted has given me a respect for water conservation. I think that if more people would change out their timer controller for a Rachio Iro we wouldn't be having water issues.

Q. Do you have any other stories about the Rachio Iro you'd like to share?
A. I have be talking about the Iro and how it has saved me a ton of money on water bills to anyone that would listen. A number of my friends jumped on the band wagon and got an Iro.

Q. How long have you owned your Rachio Iro?
A. I was one of the first to receive one so I've owned an Rachio Iro since they were released.

Rachio 2.0: Evolution of an App

That went by fast!

I can hardly believe we launched version 1.0 of the Rachio app along with our ground breaking intelligent irrigation controller, the Iro, just over a year ago.

When we first set out to change how people water their yard, we knew it had to be smart, with a world-class, cloud-based platform incorporating the latest in irrigation science. We knew it had to be easy to use, so we make setting it up as easy as walking around the yard and tapping a few buttons. We knew it to be fun, so we built simple manual controls so that control was never more than a few taps away. I personally love using this feature to surprise the neighborhood kids when they play on my lawn.

Since then, we have received a lot of feedback from our fantastic customers, and we love to listen! While planning our next big release, we reviewed thousands of comments and suggestions, and we talked to many of our customers directly. We learned that our customers are passionate about their yards and saving water. They love how easy it is to setup and control the Iro. They also told us that they want more insight into the factors that go into maintaining a healthy yard while saving water.

With this feedback in mind, we set out to take intelligent irrigation to the next level, and here’s what we came up with...

System Info Front and Center

Our customers told us that they want to quickly see the state their system is in, so we put that front and center. On the main screen, you see the Dashboard tab, providing an overview of your Iro and your yard, including local weather, watering schedules, zones, and monthly water use. From each Dashboard view, you can quickly go deep into detailed views. At the bottom of the screen are tabs to navigate to additional views. We also added a big round button for quick access to manually water your lawn. At the top of the screen is the name and location of the currently selected Iro. Finally, at the top left of the screen is a menu icon that will take you to the global app settings.

Activity Feed

Our customers told us they wanted more insight into their irrigation system, so we added a live activity feed. We also updated our cloud services to provide more real-time data and to support user actions for certain activities and events. On the Activities Screen, you will see a variety of activity feeds, including real time updates, recent watering history, schedule updates, and device updates, some of which you can change directly from the feed.

Remote Control

Customers love how easy and fun it is to manually control individual zones from anywhere using your their phone. However, we also heard many customers wanted the ability to quickly set a run time for all zones at the same time. So we came up with the Rachio remote. Just tap on the big blue button at the bottom of the main screen.

This brings up a beautiful remote control screen where you can easily select a zone to water, or all zones if you want. Easily set the amount of time you want to water simply by dragging the remote control knob with one finger. Select All Zones to run each zone for the same amount of time. Select individual zones for a custom manual schedule. Tap the reset button to set the time for all zones or individual zones back to zero. When you are ready, just tap the Run Now button to start watering.

These are just a few of the major improvements we have made to the Rachio app based on feedback from our customers. You have probably also heard about our new Flex Schedules. If you haven’t, you can read about those on our website and blog. Finally, we are also proud to release a Web version of our app. Stay tuned for more on that.

At Rachio, we are passionate about creating great products that make it easy and fun for our customers to save and manage water. We have been overwhelmed by the amount of support and feedback we have received and we hope you love using the newest Rachio apps as much as we loved making them. We can’t wait to hear from you and look forward to many happy releases.

Rachio PROfile with Jason Powers

Jason Powers
Powers Energy Solutions
Vienna, VA
https://smart-powers.com/







Q. When was the first time you installed a Rachio?
A. Although we’ve known about Rachio for a while now, we didn’t actually install our first Iro until shortly after completing the Rachio Pro training in mid-April.

Q. What’s your favorite feature of the Rachio Iro?
A. Coming from an environmental and energy efficiency background, Rachio’s EPA WaterSense certification is what first caught my eye. Studies have shown that up to 50% of the water we use outside for irrigation is wasted so ability to conserve water and save my customers money on their water bill is huge. It’s also nice to see that state and municipal governments have realized the values in these technologies and are starting to offer rebates to install them. We work with all our customers to determine if water efficiency rebates are available in their area and then guide them through the rebate process so they can receive their rebate as quickly as possible.

Q. What do you like about Rachio?

A. That it works with Nest! My company specializes in Nest products and the many integrated ‘Works with Nest’ devices. Since we are a home automation company not an irrigation company, the ability to set up and install without the specialized skills of an irrigation technician is a big plus for us. 

Q. Do your customers like Rachio?

A. They do, and the more they learn about it the more they like it! I find that most of our customers fall into one of two camps those that have never heard of a smart sprinkler systems before and those that may have seen Rachio at one of the big box stores but didn’t really understand its value. We provide them with all the information they need to make an educated decision on whether or not to integrate Rachio into their smart home.

Q. Has Rachio changed your relationship with your customers?

A. It has, for many of the reasons stated earlier. We like being able to provide our customers with as much choice as possible when it comes to smart home products. Education is key; the IoT marketplace is rapidly changing and expanding, our customers trust that we will give them the most up to date information on all the smart home products on the market. I like to say, we don’t just install smart home devices, we help design your connected home.

Q. How long have you been in business?

A. I started my company in October of 2013. For the first year, it was just me installing smart home products in the Northern Virginia / Washington, DC area, now I have over 20 technicians in many major cities across the country. If we are not in your city yet, give us time…we soon will be!

Q. What’s your favorite aspect of landscaping or irrigation?

A. That’s a great question. As an undergrad, I majored in biology and I really like the trend toward more native species in landscaping. Native plant species require less water and provide more natural habitat and food sources for native animal species. My father is master naturalist and an apiary and he loves talking about the benefits native flower species have on bee populations. He is very proud of the Certified Wildlife Habitat sign in his front yard and I’m proud of the work we are do educating customers on the value of water conservation.

What is evapotranspiration

Evapotranspiration. If you can pronounce that, congratulations, you’ve reached another level in your irrigation life.

Evapotranspiration (ET) is a fancy way of referring to the amount of water that leaves the ground, through two methods:

1. Good old evaporation, when water turns into vapor
2. Plant transpiration, when plants ‘breath’ and release moisture into the air

In the real world, there is no good way to distinguish between evaporation and transpiration, so ET is commonly referred to as one process. Furthermore, it is just one part of the water cycle, which describes how water moves throughout our environment. This includes such fun terms as condensation, sublimation, seepage, and (my personal favorite) infiltration. However, for our purposes, we only really care about ET.

Knowing how much water leaves the ground at any point is completely vital to efficient water management for one reason: it allows us to know how much water we need to add back to the ground.

There are only two main ways that water gets returned back into the ground: precipitation and irrigation. To successfully calculate how much water needs to be returned to the ground by irrigation, you must know about precipitation, but that is relatively easy to track.

That being said, measuring ET can be a challenge. The amount of evapotranspiration fluctuates throughout the year, primarily because of temperature. ET is higher with warmer temperatures and lower with cooler temperatures. This is the main reason why the amount of water your landscape needs increases in the summer and decreases in the spring and fall.

* Image from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California

However, there are many variables that go into its calculation like soil type, plant type, temperature, direct or indirect sunlight, wind, ambient humidity, etc. Accurate data for all of these variables is imperative to calculate the most correct ET value. Without ET, it’s impossible to correctly calculate how much water your landscape requires.

If you’d like to understand how Rachio incorporates evapotranspiration, check out this excellent support article.