B-hyve Smart Hose Faucet Timer

This version of timer is much easy to setup than Gen. 1 version. The Gen. 2 hub was "found" by the app in no time and firmware update time was very short too when comparing with Gen. 1 hub.I hadn't setup the timer itself using the knob on the timer yet, I used the app to do the manual watering. Again, firmware update of this timer itself was fast too when comparing with Gen. 1 timer. The whole setup worked immediately after timer finished firmware update.The only complain that I have is the packaging of the timer when I received from Amazon. It did not come with original packaging. Timer was wrapped in bubble warp and hub (2 pieces) were in 2 separated sealed bags. All 3 pieces along with the 2 user manuals were in a cartoon box, very loosely. All pieces were rocking around inside the cartoon box !Update (6/18/2024): the timer itself was locked by the App once I used the App to control the timer (manual & auto watering). Clock in timer also displays the correct time as my cell phone. No need to setup the clock in timer. One thing about Auto watering, I setup to water for 1 hour and 45 minutes. However, the App finished the watering after 2.5 hours. It never happened to Gen. 1 timer. It turned out that in the App's Program Watering setup, there was a new option called "water budget". Mine was set to 139% such that the programmed water time would multiple by 1.39. That increased the my water time by another 25 minutes. After I changed the "budget" back to 100%, programmed water time became the exact time I needed.

Unlike others, I had no issues getting the two XD hose timers setup and connected to the Gen2 WIFI hub/interface. The problem is that the three components routinely drop connection, then your plants start to die. Here in AZ, even desert plants (Palms, Citrus, Oliander) need some water to thrive. I’ve routinely tried power cycling the gateway, taking batteries out then reinserting, deleting the timers, then adding them back. The devices always show good signal strength as the hub is less than 30 feet away from each timer with a clear line of sight. And, the iPhone app looses its mind, and shows that the next watering event is scheduled for 2,726 days after trying to invoke “water manually”.Both WiFi and Bluetooth LE are mature technologies, and are successfully used by many other companies. Orbit — do you customers a favor, and fire all your developers and outsource it to someone with a proven track record.I’m returning them while the return window is open.

We previously bought one of these last summer and used it for our garden to automatically water, using a soaker hose. We loved it so much that we bought the updated version to install on the front porch for the drip system for flowers. Works great.Note: if in a colder climate and not using during winter, make sure you remove batteries during non use. We forgot to and had to throughly clean out battery compartment to get older version to work because the battery acid leaked.

Works reliably and batteries last a decent amount of time. App is not very user friendly, but it does work. I don’t like that it doesn’t start watering if it is windy or rained a little bit. 4 stars because of the app.

I saw the reviews, so I was doubting if it was going to work or not. I needed the version 2, and that is what it came. I just added it to the b hyve app and that’s it. It enabled all the advanced features and now I can control the outlets from wherever I am because it uses WiFi. I haven’t been able to make it work with Alexa, because I added it “successfully” but when I say commands, Alexa responds but nothing happens.