Orbit B-hyve 12-Zone Smart Indoor/Outdoor Sprinkler ControllerWaterSense

I got this because my water company provided a rebate for me to upgrade to a "smart" controller (automatically pauses when rain is forecast and/or has a rain meter attached), and my old controller had an electronic problem that was throttling one of my zones. I am very happy I upgraded, and I should have done so sooner!Installation was easy since I was swapping out an old controller. I turned off power, labeled all wires with the zone #s from my old controller, disconnected them, and removed the old system. I painted the wall, then installed the new box (different size, hence the need for painting), and then connected the wires to each zone. My installation is outside, and the box has proven to be sufficiently weather-resistant, and build-quality good enough to survive 4 seasons. I installed it early in the 2024 season and am writing this review about a year later.Programming the system via the Android app is really easy. You can add photos of each zone to remember which is which. I use the local weather forecast feature to auto-delay due to forecast rain. If it actually rains when not forecast (or a low % chance of rain below the delay threshold), or the rain is really heavy, it's super easy to open the app and click the "rain delay" button and choose the # of days, depending on how much rain you just received.I love being able to adjust via my phone (Android). In the spring when turning the system on for the first time, it's easy to cycle through each zone and inspect each emitter. If I'm adjusting and run out of time, it's easy to turn it back on without all the running back and forth to the controller. In the fall, the remote app makes it easier to blow my system out. I've rarely used the physical box.But more than that, I love being able to adjust my watering. For example, as the days get shorter and the landscape needs less water, I can easily dial back each zone to 90%, then 80%, then 70%, and so forth, without changing the programmed number of minutes for each zone. If it automatically delays because of a forecast 30% or higher chance of rain (you can set the threshold) and it doesn't actually rain, it's easy to cancel the weather delay or run each zone manually via the app.I love that there's no more running outside at night in the rain, in my pajamas, to manually turn off the sprinkler to save some water!

I purchased this unit, August 2024 and I am extremely happy with the B-hyve. I am not a landscaper nor am I an electrician, but I simply installed this to my old system easily. It took me less than two hours to install the unit to replace an old timer. I absolutely love this system that allows me to turn on and off the sprinklers anytime I want set multiple water patterns times etc..I think it’s a good idea for you to take a picture of the old timer and wiring. Also, it is helpful to label each wire for their zone. That way when take everything apart and go to put it back together, you have everything labeled and you don’t have to figure out your zones again. I also bought the timer for 12 zones even though I have six zones. I did this, just in case we added a zone in the future.I highly recommend this timer. It is the easiest one I’ve ever used. One of my favorite features are the timer will go onto the Internet and find out future weather and auto turn off the water if rain is on the way. I also like how it is very easy to set up multiple programs that can run concurrent or just different times of year. This really is a smart timer.

I bought this because I was sick of trying to program an older unit and thought it would be easier to do on my phone. I have some BHyve controllers and they work pretty well. The app isn't the most intuitive, especially compare to Rachio, but easy enough to set up. What's great, and unique to this brand, is that it falls back to a Bluetooth connection when WiFi is unavailable. What I didn't expect is that the WiFi would connect to my home router because everything else is out of range. Fantastic unit and easy to install. Highly recommend.

UPDATE JULY 2016:I finally got my first water bill containing the use of this timer for an entire month. According to wunderground's historical data, June 2016 was very much like June 2015. Average temp was 86.3 vs. 2015's 85.2. Mean temperature was 59.6 vs. 60.5. Precipitation was 0.64" in 2016 vs. 0.58 in 2015. The water bill didn't show gallons I used last year, but according to the graph they give me it looks like somewhere between 20% and 30% less water used this year. My grass is no more dead than usual. The past couple weeks we've been in the mid to high 90s in temperature, and the sprinklers have come on every evening, so I was a little concerned, but let it do its thing. In the end, it is watering for a much shorter time each evening, and just watering more often than my manually scheduled timer was before.If this thing continues to save 20%-30% of my water bill it will be paid for before the end of summer.ORIGINAL REVIEW:Before you begin reading the wall of text, know that I received this product free in exchange for an honest review.I upgraded from an old orbit timer that had been working flawlessly for 10 years, to this wifi enabled timer. I took a picture of the old wiring and was able to get this installed in about 15 minutes. As Lego Batman would say, "First Try!" It's much bulkier than my old timer, but includes a lock so I could mount it outside in the weather or something if I wanted to. I didn't want to.It's still a little early in the watering season for me, so I'm not sure I've run it through all its paces, but I've had it wired up for a week now. Before I hooked it up I figured I should fix the one broken sprinkler I knew about so I could test the lines. That was backward. With the old timer you obviously had to be at the timer in order to manually start and stop a station. So in flushing the line and validating my fix I had to run back and forth into the garage to start the water, then out to look at the line and check for leaks. I'm sure the neighbors enjoyed hearing me yelling from the front into the garage to my young son, "Push it now!" and having nothing happen because he couldn't reach the button...I tell you that story so that you know that had I replaced the timer first, I could have stood over the sprinkler and just tapped a button on my phone to start and stop the zone.I have 6 stations attached to the 12 station timer, and already I can tell I'm going to wish I had finer grained control of my irrigation. I inherited it when I bought the house 15 years ago and have had to discover all the secrets as things break over the years.In the companion app it was very nice to be able to name the stations I have setup. I could walk around the yard, start them, shut them down, and try to pick a meaningful name by what they were shooting at. For each station I had to select the soil type, head count, head type, etc. It would have been very nice if I could set defaults for the soil type and head type as most of my lines are essentially the same, but instead I had to select each part for each line. Not a huge inconvenience, especially since I'll really only have to do it once, but annoying enough I thought I would mention it.I originally setup my stations to run like I had on my old timer. Each one ran for the same amount of time and that was it. After poking around in the app for a bit, I thought the watering budget was very awesome. I could keep my program with X minutes per stations, but depending on the weather I could give it a percentage of that program. With it being early spring, and the weather having been cool I figured I would set it to 40% of my regular summer program. I think this feature is awesome. I could then adjust as things warmed up. I think you can even go above 100% if you are having a long dry spell or something.After playing with that, I went to the "smart watering" feature. This would be much more valuable if I took the time and energy to do something with the capture cups or whatever they're called, but I haven't done that. I'm hoping the app is smart enough to figure out something decent given the shade stats I gave it for each station and be "close enough."Smart watering allows the timer to take control of your water schedule. I like to water at night so stuff doesn't just evaporate. With smart watering I can direct it to only do it's watering thing between hours I choose. So far, that seems to be working. Smart watering also allows the timer to do automatic rain delays. We had a very wet weekend and it was nice to see the timer adjusting its next start time automatically each night. It is also supposed to take the temperature into account.One other nice feature of the smart watering is I can decide which zones participate. I can have a program that only includes garden lines and use smart watering for my lawn lines, or whatever. This was fortunate for me since while testing I found water coming up through my concrete and I haven't had time to fix that yet, so I was able to just opt that zone out of the smart watering. The app even alerts me that zone 4 is not included in any watering schedule. A nice feature.Finally, I read other reviews with concerns about wifi connectivity. I was a little concerned about this as my wireless router is upstairs in my bedroom so the signal has to go through an inside wall, a floor, and an outside wall to get to the timer in the garage. My phone showed OK, but not great signal strength at the location where I wanted to mount it. I'm happy to say I haven't seen any problems with it at all. I would also point out that your phone does NOT have to be on the same network as the timer. Once your timer is connected to the internet you can control it with the app from anywhere that you can get an internet connection. I have NOT evaluated the security of this networking because I'm too lazy to setup a proxy or sniff my network to see what's going on. It DOES require you to create an account on the orbit site.So, with all this awesome sauce baked into the timer, why 4 stars instead of 5?I think I'm smarter than the smart watering schedule. I think there are a few kinks to be worked out in the software. Frankly, it's been cool enough that I still wouldn't even have my sprinkler system turned on yet. As I said we had a very wet weekend, with a large rain storm on Monday. Today is Wednesday. The smart watering schedule seems a little unsure of itself. For most of the weekend it was telling me it was going to start at 1:43 AM on Sunday. That sounded perfectly reasonable to me. But sometimes when I check it just says it is going to start at 10:00PM tonight (which is the earliest I told it that it could start). So I'm never quite sure what is going to happen, even when I look at the app. Well, I'm sitting here watching TV tonight, and sure enough the sprinklers turn on right at 10pm. I hit the "rain delay" button and specify a 24 hour delay. It then tells me it's going to start at 1:43 AM Monday. So the start time it was telling me all week was moved by 24 hours. Alright, whatever, but then I look back at the app a couple minutes later and it tells me it is going to start watering at 10pm tomorrow night.By selecting a zone in the app I can see that it last watered exactly a week ago, and it'll tell me how much time it plans to water with the smart watering. Since it plugs into the weather, it would be interesting if it would report rain in the watering timeline as well, but that would obviously be a feature request. It does also attempt to estimate the soil moisture for each zone, which I assume is a calculation based on the last watering time, duration, and temperature. Again, not sure if it takes weather into account.I expect given that this is a new product that the software will be worked out over time and it'll only get smarter. If I do the cups thingy and input that data then it'll get even better. Finally, this thing has prompted me to make better zones in my irrigation. Right now I have zones that do all sorts of stuff and have various combinations of heads. I can see now that that is probably the reason my park strip grass is dying.To the cost. At launch the 12 zone model is about 1/2 the cost of a nest thermostat. I have a nest thermostat. Frankly, it's not money well spent. It's a "smart" thermostat that really just isn't that smart. The only thing that I really like about it is being able to turn up the heat from my phone without having to get out from under the blankets. If you, like me, have bought into the "smart home" idea, then this timer fits right in. Yeah, it costs more, but now I can sit on the couch and turn the sprinkler on my daughter when her date drops her off. I love not having to get out of bed at 11 when the sprinklers turn on when it rained earlier that day. I really just have to think less about it now (probably...) and know that I'm not going to be wasting water growing mushrooms in my grass. Given my regular water bill in the summer I expect this thing to pay for itself in a season or two.It would be awesome if this had an app for Amazon's Echo device so I could ask Alexa when the sprinklers are going to run next, or just tell her to turn on the driveway zone. With IFTTT integration that shouldn't actually be too hard (just like they did for Nest.)If you read this far, nice work. Executive Summary? A probably buy if you are in the market for another smart device or love irrigation or want to save the world by saving water, or just save money by saving water, or love controlling things in your house with your phone. I fully expect the quirks to get worked out sooner than later.