Compiled by SmartHomeWorkflow Research · Rachio · Outdoor, Lawn & Irrigation · ~$99.99 ($99.99 on Rachio's own US store, re-read 2026-09-19 at the same figure, with a live Add to Cart control and the item listed as in stock. 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.)
Compatibility at a glance
Does it work with your platform?
Choose your platform to see its setup and functions. Your choice carries across product pages.
Choose a platform above for its connection. A hub can be optional for the device itself and required for a platform or automation.
Required for the device
Rachio hub or bridge
Setup and sources
Mandatory for every smart function and included in the $99.99 bundle. Rachio's 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.' The valve itself speaks only Bluetooth, so scheduling, voice and remote app control all depend on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of the tap. One hub serves multiple valves — Rachio states eight, while Home Assistant's integration documentation states four per base station, a discrepancy this record surfaces rather than resolves.
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, that hub-to-tap range decides whether this works at the far end of a garden, and Rachio does publish a figure for it: 'The Timer Valve should connect to the WiFi hub up to 200 ft away with no obstructions between the valve and the hub. Dense walls, appliances, and other objects can diminish that range.' Read the two halves of that sentence together — 200 feet is the clear-line-of-sight number, and a house wall between the hub and the tap is exactly the obstruction Rachio is warning about. Capacity is stated too: 'Each WiFi Hub can manage eight valves', so the system expands cheaply once the first hub is in place.[3][14]
Apple Home · Partial
How it connects to Apple Home
Follow the recorded connection below. Equipment details and setup limits explain what else this path needs.
Siri Shortcuts
The documented connection
Rachio Smart Hose Timer
Rachio Smart Hose TimerRachio Smart Hose Timer
→Device connection
Rachio hub or bridgeRequired hub or bridge
→Internet
Cloud serviceInternet connection required
→Siri Shortcuts
Apple HomeSiri Shortcuts
What you gainReach the device through the documented cloud connection.
Keep in mindCheck the function table for supported controls and routines. A connection diagram does not establish every function or remote access.
How to read the equipment roles
This shows the connection route, not every network cable or a shopping list. One device may provide several roles, including a Matter controller and a Thread border router. Only a Thread connection needs the Thread role. Read the equipment cards for all recorded requirements.
These paths summarize documented setup options. Check the function table for the connection covered by each recorded capability.
Needed for this connection
Rachio hub or bridge
Setup and sources
Mandatory for every smart function and included in the $99.99 bundle. Rachio's 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.' The valve itself speaks only Bluetooth, so scheduling, voice and remote app control all depend on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of the tap. One hub serves multiple valves — Rachio states eight, while Home Assistant's integration documentation states four per base station, a discrepancy this record surfaces rather than resolves.
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. We could not confirm a Matter certificate for Rachio.[4][6][15]
Google Home · Partial
How it connects to Google Home
Follow the recorded connection below. Equipment details and setup limits explain what else this path needs.
Alexa skill
The documented connection
Rachio Smart Hose Timer
Rachio Smart Hose TimerRachio Smart Hose Timer
→Device connection
Rachio hub or bridgeRequired hub or bridge
→Internet
Cloud serviceInternet connection required
→Alexa skill
Google HomePlatform control
What you gainReach the device through the documented cloud connection.
Keep in mindCheck the function table for supported controls and routines. A connection diagram does not establish every function or remote access.
How to read the equipment roles
This shows the connection route, not every network cable or a shopping list. One device may provide several roles, including a Matter controller and a Thread border router. Only a Thread connection needs the Thread role. Read the equipment cards for all recorded requirements.
These paths summarize documented setup options. Check the function table for the connection covered by each recorded capability.
Needed for this connection
Rachio hub or bridge
Setup and sources
Mandatory for every smart function and included in the $99.99 bundle. Rachio's 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.' The valve itself speaks only Bluetooth, so scheduling, voice and remote app control all depend on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of the tap. One hub serves multiple valves — Rachio states eight, while Home Assistant's integration documentation states four per base station, a discrepancy this record surfaces rather than resolves.
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.[4][15]
Amazon Alexa · Partial
How it connects to Amazon Alexa
Follow the recorded connection below. Equipment details and setup limits explain what else this path needs.
Alexa skill
The documented connection
Rachio Smart Hose Timer
Rachio Smart Hose TimerRachio Smart Hose Timer
→Device connection
Rachio hub or bridgeRequired hub or bridge
→Internet
Cloud serviceInternet connection required
→Alexa skill
Amazon AlexaPlatform control
What you gainReach the device through the documented cloud connection.
Keep in mindCheck the function table for supported controls and routines. A connection diagram does not establish every function or remote access.
How to read the equipment roles
This shows the connection route, not every network cable or a shopping list. One device may provide several roles, including a Matter controller and a Thread border router. Only a Thread connection needs the Thread role. Read the equipment cards for all recorded requirements.
These paths summarize documented setup options. Check the function table for the connection covered by each recorded capability.
Needed for this connection
Rachio hub or bridge
Setup and sources
Mandatory for every smart function and included in the $99.99 bundle. Rachio's 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.' The valve itself speaks only Bluetooth, so scheduling, voice and remote app control all depend on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of the tap. One hub serves multiple valves — Rachio states eight, while Home Assistant's integration documentation states four per base station, a discrepancy this record surfaces rather than resolves.
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'.[4][15]
SmartThings · Inconclusive
This connection is not confirmed for this model
Connection not confirmed
Rachio Smart Hose Timer?SmartThings
There is not enough model-specific evidence to draw a supported connection. Read the evidence and limits below.
Rachio has not said, and neither has Samsung. It is worth being precise about why, because the page that looks like it answers this does not: Rachio's voice-control documentation lists the assistants it supports — Amazon Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Google Home — and that list is complete as far as it goes. But it is a list of voice assistants, and SmartThings is a hub rather than a voice assistant, so it was never a candidate for that list and its absence from it proves nothing either way. No Samsung documentation naming this timer was found either. Neither side has spoken, so the honest answer is that nobody knows.[4]
Home Assistant · Works
How it connects to Home Assistant
Follow the recorded connection below. Equipment details and setup limits explain what else this path needs.
Official integration
The documented connection
Rachio Smart Hose Timer
Rachio Smart Hose TimerRachio Smart Hose Timer
→Device connection
Rachio hub or bridgeRequired hub or bridge
→Internet
Cloud serviceInternet connection required
→Official integration
Home AssistantPlatform control
What you gainReach the device through the documented cloud connection.
Keep in mindCheck the function table for supported controls and routines. A connection diagram does not establish every function or remote access.
How to read the equipment roles
This shows the connection route, not every network cable or a shopping list. One device may provide several roles, including a Matter controller and a Thread border router. Only a Thread connection needs the Thread role. Read the equipment cards for all recorded requirements.
These paths summarize documented setup options. Check the function table for the connection covered by each recorded capability.
Needed for this connection
Rachio hub or bridge
Setup and sources
Mandatory for every smart function and included in the $99.99 bundle. Rachio's 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.' The valve itself speaks only Bluetooth, so scheduling, voice and remote app control all depend on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of the tap. One hub serves multiple valves — Rachio states eight, while Home Assistant's integration documentation states four per base station, a discrepancy this record surfaces rather than resolves.
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.[5][16]
One device can provide more than one role. These are setup requirements, not a shopping list of separate purchases.
What could you do with this?
Put its functions to use.
Research, not hands-on testing
Start with a documented control or event. The selected connection shows what is confirmed for that platform.
↔Device control
Documented device function
Valve
The device supports this control.
Compare its platform availability in the table below.
Maker’s hub or bridge. Mandatory for every smart function and included in the $99.99 bundle. Rachio's 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.' The valve itself speaks only Bluetooth, so scheduling, voice and remote app control all depend on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of the tap. One hub serves multiple valves — Rachio states eight, while Home Assistant's integration documentation states four per base station, a discrepancy this record surfaces rather than resolves.
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. We could not confirm a Matter certificate for Rachio.
Maker’s hub or bridge. Mandatory for every smart function and included in the $99.99 bundle. Rachio's 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.' The valve itself speaks only Bluetooth, so scheduling, voice and remote app control all depend on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of the tap. One hub serves multiple valves — Rachio states eight, while Home Assistant's integration documentation states four per base station, a discrepancy this record surfaces rather than resolves.
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.
Maker’s hub or bridge. Mandatory for every smart function and included in the $99.99 bundle. Rachio's 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.' The valve itself speaks only Bluetooth, so scheduling, voice and remote app control all depend on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of the tap. One hub serves multiple valves — Rachio states eight, while Home Assistant's integration documentation states four per base station, a discrepancy this record surfaces rather than resolves.
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'.
Rachio has not said, and neither has Samsung. It is worth being precise about why, because the page that looks like it answers this does not: Rachio's voice-control documentation lists the assistants it supports — Amazon Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Google Home — and that list is complete as far as it goes. But it is a list of voice assistants, and SmartThings is a hub rather than a voice assistant, so it was never a candidate for that list and its absence from it proves nothing either way. No Samsung documentation naming this timer was found either. Neither side has spoken, so the honest answer is that nobody knows.
Maker’s hub or bridge. Mandatory for every smart function and included in the $99.99 bundle. Rachio's 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.' The valve itself speaks only Bluetooth, so scheduling, voice and remote app control all depend on a mains-powered hub indoors being in Bluetooth range of the tap. One hub serves multiple valves — Rachio states eight, while Home Assistant's integration documentation states four per base station, a discrepancy this record surfaces rather than resolves.
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.
Automation availability for this model is not established.
✓ Documented for this connection. × A stated limit. ◐ A partial function. ? Not established. A listed device function does not establish a complete routine, its other equipment or any plan requirements.
Setup and sources
Apple Home
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. We could not confirm a Matter certificate for Rachio.[4][6][15]
Google Home
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.[4][15]
Alexa
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'.[4][15]
SmartThings
Rachio has not said, and neither has Samsung. It is worth being precise about why, because the page that looks like it answers this does not: Rachio's voice-control documentation lists the assistants it supports — Amazon Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Google Home — and that list is complete as far as it goes. But it is a list of voice assistants, and SmartThings is a hub rather than a voice assistant, so it was never a candidate for that list and its absence from it proves nothing either way. No Samsung documentation naming this timer was found either. Neither side has spoken, so the honest answer is that nobody knows.[4]
Home Assistant
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.[5][16]
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. We could not confirm a Matter certificate for Rachio.In Apple Home you also need: the maker's own hub
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'.In Amazon Alexa you also need: the maker's own hub
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.In Google Home you also need: the maker's own hub
SmartThings
?InconclusiveWe researched this and the evidence doesn't settle it — the catch explains why[4]
Rachio has not said, and neither has Samsung. It is worth being precise about why, because the page that looks like it answers this does not: Rachio's voice-control documentation lists the assistants it supports — Amazon Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Google Home — and that list is complete as far as it goes. But it is a list of voice assistants, and SmartThings is a hub rather than a voice assistant, so it was never a candidate for that list and its absence from it proves nothing either way. No Samsung documentation naming this timer was found either. Neither side has spoken, so the honest answer is that nobody knows.
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.In Home Assistant you also need: the maker's own hub
? 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.
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.
Batteries: 2 × AA (not included); Rachio states they 'should last a full watering season'
Works without the internet: Partly — some of it keeps working and some of it does not. See the detail below.[5][12][16]
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. On that winter: Rachio answers the leave-it-outside question with a limit rather than a yes, saying the valve 'should not be exposed to freezing temperatures', so in a cold climate this is a thing you bring in. The most reassuring published figure is about failure rather than features: the valve stores up to 400 run-events offline, and Rachio spells out what that buys — 'If you have a schedule that runs once a day, the Valve will continue to run for 400 days without internet.' Everything remote is cloud-operated — 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 also fits a Home Assistant user: 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, which Rachio puts at up to 200 feet unobstructed and expressly shortens for walls and appliances; 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.
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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 →
19 numbered sources· read them in the source's own words
[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 how to record a radio that only reaches the home network through a bridge, written into this catalogue's rules for radios the same day. — Read on the maker's own site, 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. — Read on the maker's own site, verified 2026-08-09
Backs: Product identity, Price, Protocols, Required hub or bridge, Installation, Power source, Batteries, Works without the internet, Capabilities, Market availability, Subscription, Research status
[7] A search check on the certification registry used another company's products (Narwal's Flow and Flow 2) to test that the search answers. Those certificates belong to different products and say nothing about this one., verified 2026-08-05
[8] 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 withdrawal., verified 2026-08-05
[13] this record's own lifecycle note as it stood before 2026-09-19 (no new external read): its wording was rewritten so it reads in plain language. No fact, date, source or value changed, and the earlier wording is kept on this record., verified 2026-09-19
Backs: Price, Product identity, Certification and product IDs, Protocols, Required hub or bridge, Installation, Power source, Batteries, Capabilities, Market availability, Subscription, Research status
[19] A wording correction to this record's own sentences about the certification body's keyword search. No page was read., verified 2026-10-07
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.
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