Rachio for sprinklers?

Anyone seen or tried the Rachio controller for irrigation?  I saw their booth at the CEDIA show last week and it looked pretty interesting.  The guys are local to Colorado and the unit's built there too.
 
http://www.rach.io
 
I won't be tackling my sprinkler system this season, but hope to have things sorted out by Spring.

What about skydrop and rainmachine? And probably a half-dozen other less glamorous candidates. Let's make a list. Maybe change the title to comparing smart sprinkler controllers?

I've started this comparison table for sprinkler controllers.  Please help me fill this out:  http://socialcompare.com/en/comparison/smart-networked-sprinkler-irrigation-controllers-2gsw91c7#

Hi, az,
 
Went to help out with the list, but the two I'm familiar with are not there:
 
HydroFLASH  www.hyrdroflash.net/
 
EtherRain  www.quicksmart.com/qs_etherrain.html
 
If you add columns for these, I can update the info.
 
Kevin

Registered and added data to the Rachio stuff. 
 
I noticed that I added to the specific rachio page and it didn't carry over to the comparison chart.  Is it supposed to?
 
Like this section (well related to the Rachio) about ET.   One of the trickiest pieces to ET calculations relate to utilizing UV locally or on site versus what is reported by the weather services.  It could very well be cloudy all day by your home and sunny by the weather station being utilized.  Personally I like to have more analog connectivity variables for calculations of ET versus data provided the the various weather servicies (IE a weather station at your home).  I mean it works fine if you average out the numbers.
 

How is the Iro smart if it cannot directly monitor moisture in the soil?
 
Although the Iro doesn't currently include a way to directly monitor soil moisture, we do estimate soil moisture using our Weather Intelligence.  Our Weather Intelligence estimates local Evapotranspiration and uses this information to adjust watering.
Evapotranspiration (ET) is the sum of evaporation and plant transpiration from the surface into the atmosphere.  This is a measure of how much water is leaving the ground and tells us how much water needs to be put back in.

Click to expand...

 

A while back did see a DIY for making a "better" manifold out of copper / brass rather than PVC.  Mine are PVC. 
 
Wondering if anyone is using a copper manifold?
 
Here in the midwest half of the neighbors have self draining heads on their irrirgation and others have the ones you have to clear of water at the end of the season.
 
I always wondered if one was better than another? 
 
That and the RPZ valve if outside has to be removed every fall / winter and installed in the spring.  I have read somewhere too that you can just install it inside of the house.  Anyone doing that?

Ok added models & criteria.  Not sure why your updates are not showing, did you save and publish them?

The one update (website) is showing fine on the two web pages.
 
I assumed though when I updated the individual page for Rachio; it would automatically update the comparison page with same information.
 

I am leaning toward open sprinkler.  The basic unit uses a board based on Arduino.  But the Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone based units would be cheaper and have more capability.
 
All these use the same expansion boards for more zones so here's a comparison of a basic 8 zone system (ignoring price of needed memory card, etc):
 
Arduino based unit:  $150
 
Raspberry Pi unit: 
   Price of Pi             $35
   Pi sprinker board  $75
   Total                      $110
 
BBB                           $ 55
BBB sprinkler board  $ 70
   Total                       $ 125
 
I am planning to have a tablet as the control panel so that adds to the cost but also allows other control so it seems like a reasonable tradeoff.

Yup; here its been years now running irrigation on a Seagate Dockstar initially modded with Dockstar Debian then changed over to ArchLinux.
 
Purchased a "few" Seagate Dockstars when they were on special.  The deal was posted here on the forum.  Thinking it was ~$30?
 
Initially started with the PogoPlugs but they got a bit warm with the integrated power supply.  Today the Seagate Dockstar is POE power feed.
 
USB ports are connected to a pair of Rain8Nets via a serial port, one SSD drive and one CF drive. 
 
Most expensive pieces relate to the two Rain8Nets.  Data comes from the Davis Vantage Vue, WUN and NOAA stuff.
 
Using a CSV file for the Vantage Vue weather station variables over from the Cumulus weather server indirectly coming for the internet web page stuff.
 
The software has a custom touchscreen interface but mostly I do not play with it.   Initially tested and got the Mimo USB touchscreen monitor working just fine.  This was when I was using Dockstar Debian.
 
Michael McSharry ported the mcsSprinkler applicaton over from Wintel.
 
Best calculations for UV were the simplest.
 

 
I do have it configured such that I can use the wireless x10 palm pad to turn on and off individual zones while checking them outside.  Comes in handy during spring startup and fall shutdown.  The software is made to be controlled remotely if necessary,

[root@ICS-MCSSprinklers /]# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs          1.4G  887M  456M  67% /
/dev/root       1.4G  887M  456M  67% /
devtmpfs         60M     0   60M   0% /dev
run              60M  160K   60M   1% /run
shm              60M  8.0K   60M   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs            60M     0   60M   0% /tmp
/dev/sda1       7.5G  285M  7.2G   4% /mnt/data
/dev/sdb1       1.4G  887M  456M  67% /mnt/data2
 
[root@ICS-MCSSprinklers /]# uname -a
Linux ICS-MCSSprinklers 3.1.10-11-ARCH #1 PREEMPT Mon May 21 05:59:32 UTC 2012 armv5tel GNU/Linux
[root@ICS-MCSSprinklers /]#

Click to expand...

 
Many years ago ran a cat5e serial cable from the garage to the basement and it worked fine. 
 
I like this set up because it all fits in the old Rainbird ESP box.   Each piece is in a plastic case, these are velcroed to the inside of the Rainbird case and the door remains shut.   There is a touchscreen monitor in the wall over the device; but its mostly off as I never look at it anymore.
 
Software is running in Mono and is quick.  It does a nightly backup.  DR is configured such that it will run from one memory card and automatically look for the backup memory card if need be.  Originally scrambled the USB sticks.  I am using the little mini USB port on the top for a USB to ZIF to SSD drive and a CF Card in a USB device. I did install a 1-wire temperature sensor inside of the box but never really saw that it got warm/hot. 
 
I used the Rainbird PVC tubing to get from the garage to the basement.  It was a real PITA to get the wires through the short run. 

Less chatting, more filling of the table. 

az1324 said:

Less chatting, more filling of the table.

Click to expand...

Um, no. Less thread-hijacking, perhaps? Git yer own thread, if you please...

Yup; jeez how fast time passes; seems like you only started this thread yesterday Bill.
 
Snow is around the corner; metaphorically writing.
 
Are you going to DIY the irrigation water pipe stuff or sub contract that out and post install your stuff?

wkearney99 said:

Um, no. Less thread-hijacking, perhaps? Git yer own thread, if you please...

Click to expand...

 
Bah!  You know you're going to refer to it before buying.
 
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the table so far.

No chit, time flies....  

I will absolutely be paying someone else to dig trenches. Beyond that, meh, it has everything to do with finding a contractor that actually knows WTF they're talking about.  Which narrows the field drastically.  So it'll probably end up being a mix of someone to do the design, someone cheap to dig the trenches and then I'll automate it.  
 
I did not anticipate getting it done this year, and that was a good plan.  Now that we've been in for almost a year, and had some pretty tremendous rains, I've got a much better feel for what does/doesn't need watering.  Surprisingly, the stretches directly in front of south-facing porch walls and fence took a real beating from reflected solar heat.  Which won't matter terribly because I was planning on those being plant beds, which would be on drip irrigation.  That and the way the lot now slopes it's passing more water to a neighbor's yard (instead of the previous bit of swamp I used to have).  When we dig the trenches I'm going to put in a drain tile to capture some of that, just to be neighborly.  Which is mighty kind of me as I've never gotten so much as a hello from her in the decade we've been here.  
 
The real challenge with be balancing between coverage and expense.  The lot layout is such there's a few places that don't easily lend themselves to wider coverage.  As in, need a sprinkler head all their own, which adds to the expense.  So over the winter I'll be putting some effort into finding someone local to design the coverage patterns.