Well my sprinkler station controller has packed it in and i need to buy a new one.. there seems to be a large range out there these days in terms of features and price and it is a little overwhelming. I was wondering if anyone had some recommendations or could share some experiences of products they have bought. I'm in the market for an 8-12 station controller
Cheers
Thanks, do you have this one?
Not yet, I looked into replacing mine with a wifi one a while ago. Settled on this one for a few reasons, some of the others require ongoing 'fees' this one didn't etc.
I just bought this one of Amazon! Hope it's good!
I have the hydrawise controller. I think it's great. Been very reliable for me thus far. Has wi-fi, and you can program it from the andoird or iOS app, or from any web broswer. You can log on whereever you have internet, you don't have to be home.
It can also link to any weatherunderground station. So i have it linked to my personal home weather station and it adjusts the watering times and cycles based on data from this. If you don't have a weather station, you can just find one on weather underground near you and use that.
https://sunshoweronline.com.au/irrigation/irrigation-control…
Thanks David
+1 for the Orbit B-Hyve stuff great if wanted to add in to home automation/home assistants.
I can also recommend the Hydrawise controller very highly. Wouldn’t buy another one. I’ve had mine for four years and very happy with it. Has taken worrying about the garden watering completely off my mind, and I have a big garden with varied watering requirements. I installed it just before the long heatwave we had back then on a brand new garden and it saved it because I went overseas for 3 weeks straight after installing and was turning it on from there, noting each day when the temp was over 40C and doung extra waters.
My boss receommended “don’t buy anything else” to me, and now I tell everyone I know too.
Selling points:
- you forget you actually have a garden that needs you to think about watering it - full automatation = awesome
- can pause the system with monthly selection - I do this between May and October (live in Adelaide Hills - we get heaps of winter rain, summer is very dry)
-stations can be programmed with good amount of variability to suit watering reqs, day etc
- saves a lot of water. It shows you how much you save and you can set up rules, like if there’s been more than 3mm of rain in last day then don’t water
- has built in alerts if low water for a zone, high water use, electrical short etc, so you know if a solenoid is blocked, there’s a leak etc
-I bought the flow meter and this helps with the alerts etc
- they’re modular so you can add up to 2 extra 12 station controllers
- there’s a contractor mode allowing you to manage a unit on someone else's behalf.
- you can manage another property remotely. I haven’t used this per se but thought it might be handy if you have a rental property etc. Tenants have been known to turn off watering systems to save money
- The app’s user interface is easy to use
I was also thinking that you could use it to remotely control a sprinkler system for your house for areas of high fire danger. Haven’t looked into this yet but makes sense that it would work
This is what the majority of irrigation installers use, pretty much the industry standard, nothing to fancy but does what it needs too. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Hunter-X-Core-6-Station-Outdoor-…
This one is 12 stations and has wifi :)
https://www.bunnings.com.au/orbit-b-hyve-12-station-indoor-o…