The Rainbird controller would then skip the watering automatically whenever the sensor sensed water.

This is good and works but does not include the smartness of today’s world.

To get smarter and skip the watering if there is a weather forecast for rain on the day of the pre-set watering schedule, you need something that can connect to local weather stations.

We bought Rachio 3 for the same purpose and my experience is that it does work in real time.

City Rebates on Smart Sprinklers

Most cities in the USA promote installing smart sprinklers (which RainBird is not) and subsidize the purchase and installation cost.

In our case, the City was paying a maximum of $75 for purchase (including installation).

The Rachio controller normally sells for about $200 in the open market but Costco and Samsclub usually run deals in winter.

We timed our Rachio 3 with 12 Zones from Costco for $100 in January. Here is the current deal from Amazon for 16 Zone version:

With the City’s subsidy, the final cost to replace our Rainbird controller with Rachio was $25.

We have saved this much on our water bill due to automatic watering schedule changes and rain forecast watering skips that Rachio does on its own.

How to Find City Rebate

Rachio has a dedicated page for finding the rebate that your city is running for installing smart sprinkler controllers.

Enter your zip code and press ‘Update’ to see the rebates available in your area through the local city water management department.

Installation

Rachio installation is pretty easy and you can do it yourself.

If you have RainBird installed, you will just need to take a picture of the existing wire connections and just plug those wires into the Rachio controller.

Rachio does not need screws. Only plugging the wire works in this smart switch.

It won’t take more than 15 minutes. Rachio also gives you access to your controller via a free smartphone app.

The Rachio app features that I tried and liked:

1. Smart scheduling means that Rachio will adjust the watering days per month automatically based on the local weather.
   • Connects to the local city weather station and skips watering on days when it is expected to rain or has rained. This is pretty useful.
   • Even though we can adjust the watering schedule manually, the best part is that it adjusts the monthly watering schedule automatically based on the season.
2. Smart Start and End times
   • Intelligent enough to start and end watering at the time of night when the evaporation is lowest to save water.
3. Cycle & Soak
   • Intelligent watering technique in a round-robin fashion to increase water absorption by the soil.
   • Water for like 3 minutes and then let the soil soak for another 3 minutes and then water again for another 2 minutes.
   • All these times are managed automatically if you select the ‘Cycle and Soak’ feature in the Rachio app.

Rainbird WiFi & Smartphone App -$$

Rainbird, on the other hand, sells the wifi connector separately easily costing about $100 extra over and above their controller.

Once you install this Rainbird WiFi module (hardware) on the RainBird Controller, you will be able to access the app on your phone.

The app is still not smart enough to connect to weather stations and automatically make decisions on skipping watering. The only benefit I found with their app is to change watering or trigger quick runs through the phone.

FAQ

The post Does Smart Sprinklers Save Water Bill? Tried Rachio with $75 City Rebate & Saved 30% on Regular bill appeared first on AM22Tech.

We have 5 cameras around our house too to keep the women of the house always in control of the surroundings.

4 are battery-based ring outside cameras and 1 is a wired Ring doorbell.

The pain point with battery-based cameras is the battery charging every month.

Since, we had 4, and one of them will run out of juice someday, I found myself stepping on the ladder and taking out batteries for charging almost every week. This was painful and since this task requires no skill, I wanted to automate it.

The ring is smart and hence sells solar chargers for cameras separately at a good price for a single charger.

I was very interested in installing solar chargers but the cost of each panel demotivated me.

This prompted me to try non-ring brand solar chargers which are easily half the cost of ring charges.

Wasserstein – Solar Panel (Half price of Ring – Works)

I then bought a Wasserstein – Solar Panel for Ring (2-Pack) for the same cost as a 1 Ring solar panel to just try and see if it works without hassle.

After trying these for 2 months, I went a step ahead to try the generic solar panels from Temu, which are supposedly shipped directly from China to your home in the USA.

Temu Ring Solar Charger (Cheap – AND Works)

I bought two $11 Temu solar chargers costing me a total of $22 thinking that it might be worth a try. They did work without any hassle and connected to the Ring camera.

The problem with Temu is that most products are taken off the shelf after some time. Not sure if it is only me that I am unable to find the same item again if I have to reorder after a couple of months.

I am unable to find the link for the same solar chargers that I have tried now but these look and feel pretty the same as the ones I have:

Reliability and Charging

They have all been through the harsh Texas sun, 70 miles an hour winds, hail storms, snow storms, and heavy rain.

These solar panels have now in action for more than 12 months and they have been doing their job of charging the Ring stick-up camera battery normally.

I am pretty happy with them and my whole purpose was to extract at least 12 months of usable life from unbranded solar panels to keep the smart home costs low. I think I have achieved this and you can save money too.

Let me know if you have questions about this setup.

FAQ

The post Auto Charge Ring Cameras with Temu’s Cheap Solar Panels [Smart Home] appeared first on AM22Tech.