Glad you had good luck with yours. Mine worked for 6 months well, then stopped connecting with my WiFi and pairing with my SmartPhone. I performed all the manufacturer's suggested fixes - rebooting, resetting, powering down, deleting and reinstalling phone app. Nothing worked, and then the real frustration started when they said I could submit a warranty replacement request. The system is automated ... so there is no person to give you the run around. I exchanged 55 texts with Keiya and DeAysia (probably bots and not real people). They were unresponsive, and sent me links for warranty replacements which I completed 5 times over the past 4 weeks. NADA No response, No confirmation, No Denial, No Nothing Guess I have to chalk it up as a $172 waste and find a better timer. I hope the positive reviews are real, and not being done by Orbit bots.
Rachio and Hydrawise are right now the best controllers on the market. As a contractor I usually tell homeowners to stay away from any type of orbit product because the quality of the product isn’t the best. Example at Walmart, you have to store brand and the generic brand like krafts, orbit products are like Kraft products. What I usually recommend for irrigation is Hunter or Rain Bird, for WiFi controllers, Hunter Hydrawise, Rain Bird, and Rachio
@@quadzilla26b I usually prefer Hunter Hydrawise but it more of a contractors controller. Hydrawise allows contractors you choose to access the homeowners controller if they are doing repairs or if the homeowners need help. It also uses historical weather data to build the right run times for each controller. Rain Bird lets you use the controller from the panel and from the phone. The downside about the Rain Bird is that it is can be slow on the app base. Rachio is a smart controller because it uses historical weather data that will build you a perfect water schedule for your lawn. You can control the controller from the panel but the downside is that you won't be able to turn all the zones on a program or make changes to a program. You can only turn on 1 at a time. I see that as a problem if the WiFi goes out. Also the Rachio is pretty expensive and if your controller outside, Your gonna have to purchase the enclosure with the Rachio. Rain Bird will allow you to make changes to the panel if the WiFi was out. Hunter Hydrawise you can make changes if the WiFi goes out but it a little bit difficult to do. The controller I would go for is the Hunter Hydrawise but if you were wanting something simple and Homeowner friendly, I would go with Rachio Gen 3.
@@pi11sburydoeboy have little experience with them. Only down thing about it is if your WiFi isn’t good. It goes in and out. But really good controller. I like that it uses NOAA as a weather station option.
Thanks for the great review. Great looking product. I also would be concerned re the sunlight damage especially here in Oz. Time will tell I suppose. Be great to to a follow up at some stage and let us know how it performs. I have the Orbit B-Hyve Smart Outdoor Timer. Great piece of equipment and really love it. Probably not using it to it's capacity yet (no smart watering as I haven't set the parameters up properly yet) but this has given me the impetus to re look at my set up again. Ours is a new yard and it's just getting established now. My timer is only 12mths old so having a look at your review there is not much it doesn't do that the XR does (apart from looks). Given the pricing in Australia I think Ill be keeping hold of the older one for now. Cheers
B-Hyve customer service is the absolute worst. I had a problem installing the timer and instead of calling me back, as an email to them told me they would, they refused to call and instead texted me ... at no faster than a 45-min. response time. After sending them photos of how I wired the timer, a representative finally said he had a team run a double-check (which he said was fine even though it wasn't) and after reviewing the data and looking at the problem again, they decided the unit was defective and that I should return it for another one. I brought in a professional installer who explained that neither the manual nor the few texts that I received from the company addressed the obvious problem. He rewired it correctly and now it works. Despite several requests to Orbit to speak with a manager, no one has gotten back to me. Worst. Service. Ever.
Great review. However, based on your review and my ownership of Rachio Gen 3 I can tell that Rachio's advantage is not only smart home integration. It has more features thank Orbit, it looks like. Like "cycle and soak" (to prevent runoffs), water leak detection and cutoff, automatic skip based on weather reports, freeze skip, wind skip, hibernation, etc.
Thanks for the review, well done! My question is if you update to hybrid xr app, does it automatically update the timer? Have you done a step by step to set up timer by schedule vs smart watering? Thank you Joe
Okay I purchased a beehive water system 8 Zone? It worked great for about 5 days and now it stays on for 10 seconds if you manually turn it on and then shuts off even though it says it's still running the water is not flowing do you have any ideas what could be going on with this unit. Trying to call beehive right now that probably won't get me any answers at all
The glitch you experienced was what is pushing me away from the B-Hyve and towards the Rachio. I had one at my old house with no problems, just waiting for the new Rachio 3 to drop in price a little more.
I have a friend hat's a long distance truck driver and wants to know if this timer app will allow for control over the internet? I know it has BT and WIFI but he talking about remotely controlling it from a far distance.
I bought the XR about a year ago. It's worked great until 2 days ago when it completely died on me. Hoping Orbit support will help get this sorted, so far they're silent on the matter..
All my zone settings aren’t saving, the water history saving, and it’s not even displaying weather on Home Screen. Developer told me they are having issues atm. 😵 Still handy to turn off/on/schedule by phone but. For 350 canuckistan bucks want the smart setting up and running!!
We never could get this to connect to our Wifi though my husband and i are highly technical. Orbit told us it would not connect to a 5G network (which is most common in LA) and had us split our wifi system - which we did - 5 hours later we still could not get it to connect. Support was poor and though we followed them step by step we just gave up. Returning the product.
Hi Steve, I’m looking to buy the older unit you replaced as I want more physical controls as well as better price. Since these units mainly use the app, is the software/app the same for tour old unit as it is for the new XR?
Here is my issue. I water every thired day but after a cycle, my B-Hive display says it will water again that night, not 72 hours later. I also use the web address and it displays watering schedule correctly. Have you experienced this issue?
How do you use the xr in manual mode? Where is the button located to reset, turn light off? it says to hold the b button 10 seconds. is the b button in the app or on the device with the light around it? Terrible manual and nothing to help on there website. Could you do a video on how to use those features? Thanks
What is a "zone?" Is it each of the faucet timers that you have already set up? Why don't the zones all show up on the app? I have installed 5 timers. Two are in the back yard and three are in the front. I want to program timers so that the front ones will run on even days and the back timers will run on odd days. I do not find this easy at all to set up on the app. I also want them to be manual. We are going out of town and I need them to work. Also, I have two timers in which the valves do not turn off. Is there a way to repair them?
I am not sure what is a wire? I have purchased and installed 5 working timers; 2 in the back yard and on their own hub and 3 in the front yard on their own hub. All are working when I control them from the faucet timers. They are all connected to the internet. I need to get them working by themselves before I leave to go on vacation for a month but I cannot figure out the app. Normally I am adept at working with the computer and apps but not this one. Can you work me through it?..PLEASE.
@@SteveDOES What is a "wire" in reference to what we are doing here? I just spent an hour on the phone with Orbit. I have called them 4 or 5 times with no answer. The lady helping me was nice but did not know how to tell me to program the app so she just entered my desires herself. So I still don't know how to program this app. She could not answer any of the questions I asked her. What will I do if I lose data?
@@kathrynmiles8911 I looked back and found that one of my first RU-vid videos covered the wiring of the valves. I bought the length of wiring i needed at Home Depot. Here's a link to that video. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fhg7wIxFd5g.html Hope it helps.
COM in your picture is to be used with the PUMP. You have a COM next the Zone 8. It seems that all COM all connected in a single bus inside of the unit. Otherwise, your unit sprinklers will not be working.
If you change your WiFi router, this thing is aggregating as h e l l. I'm to the point of just deleting the device in the app and just starting all over. Why? Because when you attempt to reconnect to the new router it will not find ANY WiFi during search, no matter how strong the WiFi signal.
Good video, but don't plug Rachio without using them. Rachio is garbage, they burn out every time there's a power outage even though they're running on wall-warts that should provide some power isolation.
Yeah, I I figured I could hack something together, but was wondering if they had a transformer to wire into like some of the other controllers. I actually ended up pulling the trigger on the Rachio 3 last night.
Has anyone had issues connecting this to their wifi or mesh wifi network? I have an Eero Mesh wifi network and it continually says it cannot connect. Would be great if anyone could comment on this!
Orbit spinklers have typical problems that after warranty you will have an error messages NO AC and system will not start. No support form ORBIT staff and only one information is that you can buy a new one or send you to "repair" with probably cost of new one. So ORBIT spinkler = working time 2 years or little more if you are lucky. I hardly disrecomend this brand. I measured power supply and there is a 24V power supply but manufacturer or programmed it to show this message after warranty period to push you to buy a new one or it is manufacturer or designer problem ...