Rant: My neighbor's "smart" sprinkler system keeps flooding my yard

I was out doing a landscaping job last Tuesday, and the guy's $400 Orbit B-hyve smart sprinkler decided to run for 3 hours straight in the rain because it "lost connection" to the weather app. I swear, these things are worse than just setting a timer on a dumb hose bib. Has anyone else dealt with a smart sprinkler that just does whatever it wants?

3 comments

3 Comments

murphy.tessa1mo ago

My neighbor's Rachio did the exact same thing last spring, ran for two hours straight during a downpour while we were both at work. I came home to a mini lake in my backyard and half his grass floating away. I'm convinced these things are just expensive toys that fail when you actually need them to work.

irisowens1mo ago

Yeah "half his grass floating away" is a pretty clear sign something went really wrong. But @murphy.tessa I'm surprised nobody's mentioned that Rachio and those brands actually pull real-time weather data from a third party service that can go down without notifying you. So the sprinkler never knew it was raining because the weather API was just returning clear skies while your yard was flooding.

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laura_chen411mo ago

Wait, so my smart sprinkler is dumber than a rock that just sits in the rain?