Rachio Smart Hose Timer

Compiled by SmartHomeWorkflow Research · Rachio · Outdoor, Lawn & Irrigation · ~$99.99 ($99.99 on Rachio's own US store, read 2026-08-05, with a live Add to Cart control. Read what that buys carefully, because it is the whole reason this product is priced the way it is: the $99.99 is a bundle of one valve AND one WiFi Hub, and the valve does nothing smart without the hub. Rachio states that 'Each WiFi Hub can manage eight valves', so the second and subsequent valves are the cheap part of an expanding system while the first one carries the hub's cost. Anyone comparing this against a Bluetooth-only timer on price alone is comparing a two-box system to a one-box one.)

Exactly which product this is^[3]

Model number: Not established
Generation: Not established
Region this page covers: US
Also sold or listed as: Rachio Smart Hose Timer (1 Valve + 1 WiFi Hub) · Rachio Hose Timer

“Not established” means we have not sourced that detail yet — not that the product has no model number, generation or regional variant. We publish the gap rather than filling it.

Compatibility

Ecosystem	Support	The catch
Apple Home	PartialPartial support — see the catch^[4][6]	There IS an Apple answer here, and it is the most commonly misreported fact about this product — so read the distinction carefully, because it decides whether this fits your house. Rachio's own voice-control documentation offers Siri through 'Apple Shortcuts integration to Quick Run your Rachio Smart Hose Timer'. That is Shortcuts, not HomeKit. What you get is a Siri phrase that triggers a Quick Run; what you do NOT get is a device in the Apple Home app, a tile you can tap, a valve any HomeKit automation can address, or anything shareable with the rest of the household through Home. Anyone reading 'works with Siri' as 'works with Apple Home' will be disappointed on the first day. Recorded 'partial' precisely because the route is real and first-party rather than absent — this is one of the few products in the yard category with any Apple story at all, and Eve Aqua's native HomeKit-over-Thread in this same subcategory is what a full one actually looks like. There is no Matter path either: a keyword search of the CSA-IoT certified-products database returns zero certified products for Rachio.
Amazon Alexa	PartialPartial support — see the catch^[4]	First-party and concrete about the mechanism: Rachio's voice-control documentation instructs you to 'enable the Rachio Smart Hose Timer skill in the Alexa app', which is a dedicated skill for this product rather than the sprinkler-controller skill doing double duty. The documented command set is what holds this at partial rather than full — the published capability is opening and closing a valve by its name and querying its state, with a voice-triggered open defaulting to 'the default Quick Run time before automatically closing'. Useful, and more than most vendors in this category document, but it is valve on/off rather than access to the schedule, the weather logic or the zones. One requirement Rachio states that is easy to trip over: the devices 'must be owned by your Rachio account and will not work with Rachio devices that are shared', so a household member who was given access rather than ownership cannot use voice at all. The hub is also a prerequisite — voice needs the timer 'connected to a Rachio WiFi Hub'.
Google Home	PartialPartial support — see the catch^[4]	First-party, and documented with the most specific example on the whole record: Rachio states that once linked, 'all valves associated with your account can be opened and closed using Google Assistant and Google Home', and gives the working phrasing — 'Hey Google, open Potted Plants' for a valve named Potted Plants, plus status queries such as 'Hey Google, is Garden closed?'. Naming the actual sentences is a real capability statement, not a compatibility badge. Partial for the same reason as Alexa: the scope published is open, close and query, and nothing suggests schedules or weather behaviour are reachable by voice. Same two prerequisites apply — an owned rather than shared device, and a connected WiFi Hub.
SmartThings	InconclusiveWe researched this and the evidence doesn't settle it — the catch explains why^[4]	Not established, and deliberately not converted into a 'no'. Rachio's voice-control documentation names Google, Alexa and Apple Shortcuts and does not mention SmartThings — but three named platforms is not a statement that a fourth is unsupported, and no Samsung documentation naming this product was located either. Neither side speaks, so the honest state is unknown on both.
Home Assistant	WorksWorks with this ecosystem^[5]	The strongest cell on this record, and it comes entirely from the other side — Rachio's own pages name Home Assistant nowhere. Home Assistant ships an OFFICIAL Rachio integration, IoT class 'Cloud Push', and its documentation covers hose timers explicitly rather than by implication: it provides 'a switch for each smart hose timer valve' and 'A calendar entity will be added for each smart hose timer base station'. That is per-valve control plus the schedule surfaced as a calendar, which is more than any of the three voice platforms offer. It runs through Rachio's cloud, so it is not a local control path despite the depth. ⚠ One discrepancy is recorded rather than reconciled, because both sides are first-party to their own claim and this catalogue does not adjudicate between them: Rachio says 'Each WiFi Hub can manage eight valves', while Home Assistant's integration documentation says 'Up to 4 valves can be paired to a single base station'. That may be a difference between what the hardware supports and what the integration exposes, or it may be one of the two being out of date. If you are planning a system around valve count, verify against your own hardware before buying the eighth valve.

? Inconclusive means we researched that ecosystem and the evidence doesn’t settle it — the catch says why, and the sources are listed below. It is a statement about the available evidence, never a verdict on the product. A Setup Check researches your exact setup where the official sources don’t answer.

Protocols: WIFI · BLUETOOTH^{[1][2][3][6][9]}

Needs before it works: Yes, and it is included in the $99.99 — but it is a real architectural constraint rather than a packaging detail, so it is worth understanding before you buy a second one. Rachio describes the chain in its own words: 'The Timer uses Bluetooth to communicate with the WiFi hub, and the WiFi Hub communicates to your WiFi router or access point via 2.4 GHz WiFi.' So the valve on the tap speaks only Bluetooth; everything remote — scheduling, voice, app control from away, weather adjustment — depends on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of it. Two consequences. First, the 2.4 GHz requirement is stated and absolute, which matters on a modern mesh router that hides its bands. Second, hub range to the tap is the thing that decides whether this works at the far end of a garden, and Rachio publishes no distance figure — that is the single most useful number missing from this product's documentation. Capacity is stated: 'Each WiFi Hub can manage eight valves', so the system expands cheaply once the first hub is in place.^[3]

What it can do^[3]

You can tell it to

Valve
On/off

It reports

None documented by the vendor

Listed capabilities are what we could establish from vendor documentation. An ability missing here is unestablished — not necessarily absent.

Subscription reality^[3]

✓ Works without a subscription: Yes.

Vendor account required: Not established — we have not sourced this yet.

No subscription, no fee, and no tier is mentioned anywhere on the pages read — not on the product page, not in the voice-control documentation. Recorded 'none' on that basis, with the honest qualification that this is an absence of any fee language rather than a vendor stating 'this is free forever' the way Husqvarna does for its mowers. Nothing about the product's design implies a future paywall either: the offline capability Rachio advertises — the valve stores up to 400 run-events and keeps watering when the network is down — is the opposite of a service you can be locked out of. One thing to note for total cost rather than subscription cost: the two AA batteries are not included, and Rachio says they 'should last a full watering season', so budget a set a year.

Maintenance reality^[3]

Batteries: 2 × AA (not included); Rachio states they 'should last a full watering season'
Works without the internet: No — the core function depends on the vendor's servers, so an outage takes it with them.^[5]
The valve is battery-powered and the hub is mains-powered, which is the usual split for this design and means the thing outdoors needs no wiring. Rachio publishes an IP65 rating for outdoor exposure, a one-year warranty on the valve and two years on the hub — an unusual asymmetry, and a fair one, since the valve is the part sitting on a tap through a winter. The most reassuring published figure is about failure rather than features: the valve stores up to 400 run-events offline, so a router outage or a dead hub does not stop the garden being watered on schedule. cloudDependent is true for everything remote — app, all three voice platforms and the Home Assistant integration all run through Rachio's service — but the schedule itself survives on the valve.
Security updates: No security-update support date is on record for this model yet. We haven't yet checked whether Rachio publishes one, so this is a gap in our research — not a statement about the manufacturer.

The catch

The first thing to get straight is what $99.99 buys: one valve and one WiFi Hub, together. The valve on your tap speaks only Bluetooth, and Rachio says so plainly — 'The Timer uses Bluetooth to communicate with the WiFi hub, and the WiFi Hub communicates to your WiFi router or access point via 2.4 GHz WiFi.' So the hub is not an upsell, it is the product's spine, and every remote feature dies without it. Read the Bluetooth in the protocols list above with that in mind: it is the valve's only radio and it carries every command the timer ever receives, but your phone never talks to it — the app reaches the hub over Wi-Fi, and only the hub speaks Bluetooth to the valve. There is no standing-at-the-tap Bluetooth mode to fall back on if the hub is unplugged or out of range. Two practical consequences follow. The 2.4 GHz requirement is absolute, which is worth knowing on a mesh router that hides its bands behind one network name. And the distance from the indoor hub to the outdoor tap is the number that decides whether this works at the bottom of your garden — Rachio publishes no range figure anywhere, which is the single most useful thing missing from its documentation. The good news is that expansion is cheap: one hub manages eight valves, so the second tap costs a valve rather than a system. Second, the Apple question, which this product gets misreported on more than any other in the category. Rachio does offer Siri — through 'Apple Shortcuts integration to Quick Run your Rachio Smart Hose Timer'. That is a Siri phrase that fires a Quick Run. It is not HomeKit: no device in the Apple Home app, no tile, no HomeKit automation, nothing to share with the household through Home. If you want a hose timer that is genuinely an Apple Home device, Eve Aqua in this same subcategory is what that looks like. Third, what voice actually does. Rachio documents it better than most — the published commands open a valve, close it, and ask whether it is open, with Google phrasings spelled out ('Hey Google, open Potted Plants'). What no platform reaches is the schedule, the zones or the weather logic; voice here is a tap, not a control panel. And one requirement that will catch households: the devices 'must be owned by your Rachio account and will not work with Rachio devices that are shared', so the person who was given access cannot use voice. Fourth, Home Assistant, which is where this product is documented most deeply — and not by Rachio. The official integration gives a switch per valve and a calendar per base station, which is deeper than anything Rachio's own voice integrations offer, and Rachio never mentions it. ⚠ One number to check before you plan a big system: Rachio says a hub manages eight valves; Home Assistant's documentation says four can pair to a base station. Both are first-party to their own side and this catalogue does not pick between them. Finally, two small money notes: no subscription is mentioned anywhere, and the two AA batteries are not included — Rachio expects a set to last a watering season.

Who it's for

The right hose timer for a household on Alexa or Google that wants scheduling, weather awareness and voice from a tap, and expects to add taps later — one hub covering multiple valves makes the second and third zone much cheaper than the first, and the valve keeps watering on schedule through a network outage because it stores its run-events locally. It is the standout choice for a Home Assistant user in this subcategory: an official integration with a switch per valve and a calendar per base station is deeper than what Rachio's own voice platforms offer. Think twice if you are an Apple household expecting a Home-app device, because Siri here works through Shortcuts and nothing appears in Home — Eve Aqua is the product for that requirement. Think twice, too, if the tap is a long way from the house, since everything depends on Bluetooth range between the valve and an indoor hub and Rachio publishes no distance figure; if your router does not expose a 2.4 GHz band; or if the account holder is not the person who will be doing the shouting, since voice does not work on shared devices.

Sources & method

Numbered sources below back the facts marked with the matching number above. This is a research profile: compiled from manufacturer documentation, certification registries, and published testing — we state facts, not verdicts, and we have not physically tested this unit. How we work →

[1] Rachio's own description of the chain (re-read 2026-08-09): 'The Timer uses Bluetooth to communicate with the WiFi hub, and the WiFi Hub communicates to your WiFi router or access point via 2.4 GHz WiFi'; 'Each WiFi Hub can manage eight valves'. Rachio publishes no hub-to-valve range figure. Owner ruling 2026-08-09 on the escalation `bq112-bridge-mediated-radio`, encoded as the bridge-mediated-radio amendment in 09 §protocols the same session. — vendor-support-doc research, verified 2026-08-09
Backs: Protocols
[2] Rachio's own description of the chain, already cited on this record and re-read 2026-08-09: 'The Timer uses Bluetooth to communicate with the WiFi hub, and the WiFi Hub communicates to your WiFi router or access point via 2.4 GHz WiFi.' Also stated by Rachio: 'Each WiFi Hub can manage eight valves.' Rachio publishes no hub-to-valve distance figure. ⚠ A third-party review (TechHive) states 'you can't connect your smartphone directly to the Rachio' — consistent with Rachio's own chain description, and recorded as corroboration only, not as the basis for any change. — vendor-support-doc research, verified 2026-08-09
Backs: Protocols
[3] Rachio, Smart Hose Timer product page (US) — vendor-page research, verified 2026-08-05
Backs: Product identity, Price, Protocols, Required hub or bridge, Installation, Power source, Maintenance, Capabilities, Market availability, Subscription
[4] Rachio, "Voice Control for Smart Hose Timer is here!" — vendor-support-doc research, verified 2026-08-05
Backs: Apple Home compatibility, Amazon Alexa compatibility, Google Home compatibility, SmartThings compatibility
[5] Home Assistant, Rachio integration documentation — counterparty documentation, verified 2026-08-05
Backs: Home Assistant compatibility, Works without the internet
[6] CSA-IoT certified products database, keyword search — registry lookup, verified 2026-08-05
Backs: Protocols, Apple Home compatibility
[7] No reduction of service found. All three voice platforms are currently documented by Rachio on its own site, and the Home Assistant integration that covers this product's valves is current and official. No fee has appeared for any of it, and nothing on the pages read announces a — migrated hand stamp, verified 2026-08-05
Backs: Service status
[8] unrecorded — the migrated lifecycle.research stamp carried no source field — migrated hand stamp, verified 2026-08-05
Backs: Research status
[9] Matter Distributed Compliance Ledger, models for VID 5408 (Rachio), read 2026-08-22 via tools/dcl-lookup.mjs: 1 model(s) enumerated to pagination exhaustion (next_key terminated). The single registered model is 'Lighting controller' [part LC101-200W-3Z] (PID 39357) — not a hose timer or any irrigation product. — registry-lookup (DCL enumeration by vendor ID, with known-positive control), verified 2026-08-22
Backs: Protocols

Compatibility and lifecycle information reflects the last-verified date above and can change without notice (firmware updates, cloud-service changes, discontinuations). It is provided as-is, for information — verify with the manufacturer before purchasing. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it. Full terms: Terms of Service.

Check it against YOUR setup →