Customer Reviews

Cyber-Rain XCI 8-Zone Automated Sprinkler Controller

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have used the Cyber Rain sprinkler system this summer and fall and I have been generally pretty pleased with it. There have been no mechanical or electrical issues with this system. I replaced a much older working sprinkler controller.

1). No Odd / Even day water capability. In my area watering is restricted to odd/even days which is not the same as every other day. Because the CyberRain unit is based more on a week schedule, I had to visit the schedule at least once a week to make sure I was watering on the correct days. I have emailed CyberRain and they have said this suggestion will be incorporated into a future release.
2). Distance USB to device. There is a USB transmitter which plugs into your computer. This USB device needs to talk daily with the main controlling unit. Typically my computer is up on the 2nd floor and my sprinkler system controller is in the basement. I did not try this setup as I was concerned about the distance and all the interference by transmitting through the house. A system that had a network jack would have been much better for me, but with setting up a computer in the basement it never had a problem transmitting to the controller.
3). Need to leave computer on / or at least turn on daily. The PC pulls weather information daily and updates the controller daily based on the forecast. This is one of the more powerful features of the system. If you do not turn on your PC or leave it on, it will not have that information and will water when it is raining, and during a heat wave it may not water enough. Not a big deal but if it is hooked to a PC that is not on everyday you will not get full benefits from the system. (Which is another reason I liked having an ethernet connection directly to this device, it could pull this information automatically)
4). Manual watering through the device is hokey. This one may be my fault, but when I wanted to give the lawn in front another 15 minute watering, this was not possible by pressing the button on the unit. You can start any of your zones, but the time was extremelly limited that it would stay on. To give it additional watering I had to create a new 1-time schedule for that zone on the PC.
5). Does not yet tie in with any Home Automation systems. One other suggestion I had for CyberRain was to tie in this system to other Home Automation systems. They were planning to connect it to a high end home automation system. I was hoping they would look at other systems as well such as Housebot.
I look forward to their changes in the software for the 2009 watering system. Overall I have been pleased with the unit.

My wife was skeptical when I installed cyber rain. we have a good sized front yward and back yard and water prices in so. cal. cost us about $225 per month. Cyber rain has been saving us $100 each month and my wife is much happier with the health of the gtass than before. She likes being able now to check the water schedule from the household computer, and used to hate our old timer with difficult dials and displays in the cluttered garage corner. One of the other features she is now pleased with was cyber rain's cycle amd soak mode, allowing her to seed and top some new lawn and have cyber rain apply cycles of water to keep it moist many times each day during germination. We like cyber rain and would never go back to our old timer.

******People with odd/Even watering restrictions beware****
I bought system this last year. Unfortunately, after I installed it I found out that they do not support watering on only odd/even days. (a common restriction for watering in suburban areas and a feature on all major sprinkler controllers) I emailed them in July of 08 and they thought it might be in a future upgrade within the next 2-4 months. I held tight through the fall and just recently contacted them only to get the same response of "A feature like this may be developed some time in the future". It's very disappointing in that not having this feature means that I have to manually change the watering days each week. In my area there are fines if you water on the wrong days, so forgetting can cost me an increasing fine over time. (Hardly what you want form a $400 sprinkler controller) If you don't have the odd/even requirement, the system works well, but I worry that a company that doesn't ever update their software (even for a simple feature like "don't water on odd or even days") may not have longevity or have a consumer focus. I wish I wouldn't have held out for the software release and returned the system when I found out the limitation.


****Update 7/12/2010****
The latest controller has some limited water restrictions features but still no odd/even and no ETA.

Most people have no idea how much water they waste. Up to now, the only way to save water was to constantly monitor and adjust your sprinkler controller which is not quite practical if you have a life. This product is incredibly easy to install and use. However, it will forever change the way you have been watering your plants. Instead of knobs and complicated dials, it lets you program your watering schedule graphically from the PC with really cool user interface. But where this unit shines is that after initially setting your schedule, you can forget about your sprinkler watering. It checks the weather forecast daily and adjust the watering based on how hot/cold or humid/dry the weather is. It stops watering when it rains. These guys have turned one of the most boring devices into a cool gadget that helps you save water and keeps your plants healthy.
On the down side, there is no Mac OS version and the prices can get get expensive if you have more than 8 zones unless you can get rebates where you live.

Hardware: Well made and easily to install. Just connect the control valve leads, the common ground, and plug in the control box. USB wireless unit works flawlessly.

Software and Setup: Well done and easy to use. Just install software, plug in usb hardware, wait for the drivers to install, and then start software. The software itself walks you through the configuration for your landscape and weather location.

Customer Service: Exceptional. (personal experience - I had to reinstall the setup when my computer broke. I emailed for guidance thinking I would hear back by the next day. Literally within 3 minutes I was phoned and helped by a most knowledgeable and personable person in customer support. It was the best customer support I have ever encountered.

Usage: I live in Texas and the days in June this year are in the 95-102 range and we are in a moderate drought potential time. The system still has helped even now by adjusting the water duration based on the relative humidity. Here in the Hill Country we have soil over rock and hills. I particularly like the software's ability to run the sprinkler zones on a cycle, then soak setting. You tell it how long you want the total zone to water, tell it how long to cycle on so there is no run off, and how long to rest (soak) between each water on cycles. Works like a charm.

Overall and after thoughts: Great product; buy one. It's fun to use and review the run logs and water savings data. Keep your old garage timer controller so when/if you move you can reinstall it before you put your home on the market. I will certainly take this wherever we move.

I hope this review helps you decide if it is right for you. I don't usually review any products but this one stands way out in terms of build quality, software design, ease of use, customer support, and usefulness.

Great System with many inovative features but as communities across the country adopt to odd/even water days to conserve water usage Cyber Rain has failed to update their software to commodate this type of watering restriction. I find myself having to go into the system every week to adjust my watering schedule to avoid costly fines. Would not recommend this system for that reason.

This unit has paid for itself several times over. Yes, I had to buy a replacement transmitter to attach to the computer when I upgraded operating systems and, yes, I would have been happy not to spend the extra money. However, this unit tracks my local weather and adjusts for rain, sun, and seasonal requirements. Over the last year, our water bill has been down about $60 a month because the system isn't guessing. It did better than that this summer, more like $75 a month, as we had unusually mild weather combined with early rains. I would have just left the settings on the old controller alone and wasted a swimmming pool of water without even knowing it.

I installed one unit a month ago. The controller installation was easy. The network hook up was pretty easy too.

Over the years I have installed many different sprinkler controllers at my home, and I have used just about every brand. I can tell you honestly that this is by far the best sprinkler controller that I have ever used. There are some minor software kinks but they do not affect overall functioning of the system. The amount of water saving is just out of this world. I live in California. Water is expensive here. The direct wifi internet connecttion to Weather Underground and the algorithm to automatically adjust watering duration depending on soil, plant type, temperature, huminidity and rain are unbelievably powerful.

In my opinion, every home should use the Cyber Rain controller. It is simply that good.

I hate traditional sprinkler controllers (and pool controllers, and my Casio watch). I hate every controller that has 8 buttons and hundreds of options that makes me reach for a manual every time I use it.

I've been waiting for a reasonably priced sprinkler controller with a beautiful browser user interface. Other must-have feature is automatic adjuststment of watering times for weather, without a monthly fee ( I hate monthly fees too).

Cyber-rain does all of this, so I bought it. Install was easy. I had great hopes for software. I imagined setting watering times being as easy as adding an appointment to Google Calendar. It was not to be.

On my Mac, it started off with "Please install the latest version of Silverlight". Uh-oh.

The UI feels like 90's form based software. Lots and lots of buttons, and you have to spend some time figuring out what to do. Everything you want to do is somewhere on the 5 or 6 screens, but figuring out where takes some detective work.

In particular, programming watering times is a pain. First, you set up to 4 start times that apply to every zone. Then, you enter watering duration for each start time for each day for each zone separately. This means that to change your watering times from 10 to 5 minutes in zone 1, you have to enter 5 in Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, etc. Theere is no way to program "every other day".

There are so many neat things one could do with a cloud based controller: charts describing how long were sprinklers on per month; they could sell extra services, such as garden diary (what I planted and when, and how did it do). None of it is there.

Hey, Cyber-Rain guys: [...] did an awesome job with controller software. Talk to them, see how they did it. Cyber-rain is almost there, all they need is the right software design.