Water Stories: Matt Beazer

Matt Beazer
Spokane Valley, WA
Rachio user for 3 months



Q. What led you to purchase your Rachio Iro?
A. I bought my home in early fall of 2014. It had been unoccupied for 8 years. In the spring I found myself faced with fixing most of a decade of deferred sprinkler maintenance. The sprinkler controller is in my basement, so doing sprinkler testing had me running across the house and down two flights of stairs every time I wanted to test a new sprinkler head or purge a line of dirt. The Rachio has saved me literally hundreds of trips up and down the stairs in the last few months.

Q: How has the Iro changed your lawn/ landscape?
A. I was guessing with my sprinkler watering times before, leading to browning of grass in some zones and overwatering in others. The Rachio gave me a baseline that kept the lawn green in the brown areas and avoided runoff into the street in others.

Q: Where is the best place you have controlled your Iro from?
A. The best place I've used it is from work while watching my security cameras over the Internet. The neighbors across the street think my front lawn is their own personal dog toilet. I installed security cameras to catch them at it but the neighbors didn't care and sent their dogs over to "do their business" anyhow. Now when I see the dogs in my yard I use the Rachio app to turn the sprinklers on remotely, resulting in the dogs making a fast exit from my yard and returning to their owners soaking wet. Needless to say I've stepped in a lot less dog poo while mowing my lawn since installing the Iro!

Q: What is your favorite feature of the Rachio app or webapp?
A. Being able to turn on specific zones anywhere in the world I have Internet access at any time for any reason.

Q: How has owning an Iro enhanced your understanding of your water use?
A. People don't realize how many gallons of water it takes to keep your yard green. I own a third of an acre and it takes vastly more water than I realized to water it until I got the Iro.

Q: Do you have any other stories about the Rachio Iro you'd like to share?
A. When it's hot outside and my kids want to play in the sprinklers, I just pull out my phone and turn the sprinklers on and relax on the patio while they play. Then when they get cold or tired I don't have to worry about the kids forgetting to turn the water off and flooding the yard.