Hydrawise Irrigation Reviews

Second season I have been using it and I do like HydrawiseIrrigation a lot, but there are a couple things that drive me nuts. I use the reports section quite a bit and it defaults to the last week. So the first thing I have to do is change it to today and it does not retain the end user changes from session to session. Also the total water usage totals don’t always jive with the flow meter totals. Would be really nice if HydrawiseIrrigation let you download the data into your own spreadsheet for further analysis.

Don’t pay for the 5 weather stations service. For me it’s proven highly inaccurate. The only modification trigger that has helped me is the % chance of rain to abort watering. There is much room for improvement here to have it interface with your own weather observations at your exact location.

All in all I like HydrawiseIrrigation and hope they continue to enhance it. User defaults would be a huge plus.

The performance is not very consistent- right now I can’t edit the zones - the pages won’t load. Every time I interact with HydrawiseIrrigation there is always some different performance issue. Other things: I constantly have to log in with my email address (no “remember me” option). This is a real pain if my hands are wet or I’m wearing gloves. I agree with the other reviewer about the default report to week and need to always switch to day. The overall intersections of options are really not intuitive- setting a time on a zone is required, then you put it on a program schedule that overrides that, so the zone schedule time is no longer used or relevant. It’s not clear what zone settings vs program schedules are driving at any point in time. Overall insight into my set up is lacking. My water usage grew dramatically last month (based on my water bill) - I didn’t have insight into that. Perhaps I’ll add a flow meter, but out of the box I’m not seeing something like “total minutes programmed per day” or something that would give me a sense of what I’ve programmed over time and to make sure I did not cross my wires among all the levels of set up. Finally, the help pages are well documented but aren’t consistent with what I see in HydrawiseIrrigation . Thanks. Ps if this gets posted note that every nickname I was required to enter to post was taken.

Works well as long as your controller has stable wifi. It saves so much time adjusting schedules, testing zones and heads, and you can do it from palm of your hand.

I would like to see 1 thing in particular added to HydrawiseIrrigation that already exists in standard irrigation controllers: The ability to adjust an entire program to run each zone by a % more or less. I adjust run times and check my irrigation system almost daily. Some nights if I feel I need to run irrigation but not the full time on each zone. It would be so nice to just move a slider to, for example, 50% so all my zones run but just for half of the time that night. Or mid summer, when a heat wave is coming through, instead of changing each of my 29 zones run time, just move the slider over to 120%. I know there already is a similar option to adjust the % run time by month but I want the option to be able to adjust it for the whole program on a daily basis if needed

HydrawiseIrrigation and controller have a lot of features I like and opening HydrawiseIrrigation and HydrawiseIrrigation connecting to the controller is by far faster and app tuns smoother than the rainbird app and their ESP-TM2 that I had before purchasing and installing the hunter hydrawise pro hc. But theres still is a delay with loading when first opening HydrawiseIrrigation that could be improved more. I’m not sure if it’s possible because havn’t figured it out if it is possible, being able to have the option to set each zone at multiple different watering run lengths for each program start time’s instead of only being able to set each zone at only one run length each for all the programmed start times it is set to run on.
Also would be nice to be able to see which exact zone the Reports chart is referring to under the Water Usage Flow Rates measurements when you click on one of the measurements instead of it only saying “There were 1 zones active at this time” without indicating what zone it was. Besides those things I have no actual complaints.

My yard hadn’t been watered for two weeks when I noticed after much searching through HydrawiseIrrigation screens that there had been an error message for possible faulty wiring or bad solonoid and for some reason it never watered after this (Was this why?). My yard was newly sodded so this is NOT good. It was set to run at night while I sleep so I trusted it to do that. Big mistake. All it would take it a little tweaking so users could get notifications like badges, banners, etc. and that would have fixed my issue. A badge notification for a problem would have been an instant flag for me to check on my Hydrawise system immediately instead of me “accidentally” noticing it after two weeks of very little rain and high temperatures when my lawn was beginning to show signs of stress. I am almost positive it will run with the Background App Refresh turned on, but this drains the phone battery down so quickly; notifications like badges and banners will run WITHOUT Background Refresh on. Please try to make this change.

HydrawiseIrrigation has a lot of stuff in it. But it’s not very intuitive and you have to dig around to find stuff sometimes. It could be a lot smoother.

Separately, I am surprised it doesn’t have a way to cancel or postpone upcoming waterings when you’re looking at the schedule. I may just be missing it but it seems the only want to cancel a particular scheduled watering is to either alter the schedule itself under “programs” or to wait for that watering to start and then go in through the remote and immediately cancel it.

This is the third year and we’re now looking for a new controller. When Hydrawise works, it is fine. However it frequently does not work. When we travel and want to water our flower beds, most of the time the we cannot manually do so. It is extremely frustrating when there is a heatwave (such as right now) and we can’t save our plants. It is costing us money not to switch to another system when we have to replace plants. Manual watering is barely available. About the only thing that works most of the time is the scheduled watering. But I did say most of the time not all of the time. It seems to have problems synching on a regular basis. I don’t understand since when we get home the controller states it has a strong Wi-Fi signal. My mistake was allowing the contractor to choose the solution rather than researching a solution that actually works.

I have been a Hydrawise user (or should I say “victim”) for over five years. During that time, what started out as a very poor app has gotten worse and worse with each passing year.

It is the polar opposite of Apple’s many user friendly apps: it is difficult to use, difficult to remember how to use, and now just logging in has become a TOTAL NIGHTMARE! In the early years, the user remained logged in all the time, even when not using HydrawiseIrrigation for a few weeks or months. Now you must log in every time and it is a NIGHTMARISH EXPERIENCE. Today, despite my five-Plus years of experience using HydrawiseIrrigation , I was completely unable to log in and will have to search the web for a support phone number.

I tried my user name and password, which I know to be correct because they are stored in my browser and it in a spreadsheet. During this frustrating process, I would first input my user ID, then retrieve the password from my browser. As soon as it populated, it would knock out my user name and I would have to re-type it. Then the log in would fail.

Next I tried using my Apple ID. Again it failed!

If you have read this far, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON ANY HYDRAWISE PRODUCT.

Why can’t Hydrawise hire a competent app developer who can build a high-functioning, easy-to-use, fool-proof app, such as Lutron’s home lighting gating app?

I just had a new sprinkler system installed with this system. When I first connected HydrawiseIrrigation to my controller it had me set up the initial program which was fairly easy. But I made my choices quickly just to get it up and running. When I went back to change the start times or days it would run, I couldn’t find an option for “programs”. I tapped around on but still couldn’t find it. Finally I sent a message through the help option and THREE DAYS LATER got an answer that explained something about summer and winter schedules!! In the meantime I kept trying different options and found that if I tapped on “Zones” there was a faint icon for “programs”. I tapped this and it listed the program I had initially set up but when I tapped on it nothing happened. Finally I discovered a little notepad icon that got me back to the place where I could change the program. It was ridiculous!!

While Hydrawise for the HCC controller advertised that you can run two stations in parallel if you can afford the water flow budget, it does not say that it will always do that if schedules overlap. Let’s say you have highly variable schedules due to weather, runtimes for eg MP rotators can vary from a few minutes to dozens of minutes per station. If you group them into a schedule and create another one for all the planters with micro drips, if the two schedules happen to overlap on very hot days, the HCC controller will run them in parallel.
Every other system would stack them and run them one after the other. There is no setting available to prevent multiple valves to become active at the same time. Makes the software and controller combo unusable for any setup that cannot run multiple valves in parallel.

And HydrawiseIrrigation developers do not listen. Are you deaf? Can you read? Each “upgrade” to HydrawiseIrrigation is meant to make it look fancier and more advanced, but you’re crippling its efficiency. The idiotic dial you have to “turn” to set your minutes is stupid and you can never just land on the time you want without tinkering with it. This is especially fun when you have 12 zones. And now, the newest feature— a pop-up that must be cleared when you’re stacking custom watering zones. That’s super helpful! I mean, is the goal to have it take 95 steps to turn the water on? What are you thinking?!?! Why don’t you go look at some other apps that people actually like and implement some of their basic ideas. It’s now easier to use the Hunter control head than HydrawiseIrrigation . And that’s just sad and unnecessary.

HydrawiseIrrigation should be simple. Like setting up a thermostat. You should be able to turn each zone up manually and set the duration. And you should be able to schedule the zones to come on at a certain day and time each week for a specified duration. Instead it is very difficult to perform these easy tasks. Both HydrawiseIrrigation and the documentation are geared toward contractors. There are highlighted icons for multi-site use while there is no icon to schedule the sprinkler to go on and off at your house. Also both the controller and app indicate that the internet connection is good when in fact it isn’t. The opposite is also true. Then when you try to contact customer service they complain that too many people need help. Well duh - create an app that makes sense.

When I started using HydrawiseIrrigation (May, 2023), it was rated 2 1/2 stars. I don’t understand why others have rated it so poorly. It is a great app. Very intuitive, easy interface, easy set up and it works great. I love HydrawiseIrrigation and it has made managing my sprinkler system so much easier. I highly recommend it. As an aside, I upgraded my hunter controller from no Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi and it was incredibly easy, too. Total cost was around $150 for the new panel in it. Installed effortlessly in about 12 minutes. I got everything to run the first time with no hassles.

I’ve been using HydrawiseIrrigation for a second season now and I’m appalled by the lack of any significant improvement to this barely functional software. Hunter is a very successful company! Why can’t you hire an IT team that can write an app that doesn’t look like Windows ‘98? Seriously, the graphs are a joke, the download functions don’t work, and the user interface is bush league. Hunter should fire the developers of HydrawiseIrrigation and start fresh. I know a guy, msg me if you need a professional. I’m sad that I’m married to thousands of dollars worth of equipment and this is the software I have to control it. Please do something better, please! The data is all there, you just need to present it in a clean, concise, and functional UI.

The weather data provided by the weather stations is inaccurate and delayed. The stations are not near my home, so their weather doesn’t match my house. Result: the sprinklers often are running while it’s raining, or after it has rained. I can download any number of weather apps which know the weather at any location in the US. But HydrawiseIrrigation doesn’t know.

HydrawiseIrrigation itself is bad. It’s clearly a web app ported to mobile. As a result, its touch responsiveness is bad and it feels slow. Page transitions are terrible.

It’s missing major features. Once a program starts, I cannot stop the whole program. I often need to do that because it’s running while it’s raining. The only thing you can do is stop an individual zone once it has started. So, I need to check back with HydrawiseIrrigation every 20mins and stop each zone as it starts. Ridiculous.

A smart sprinkler system is about good software. Clearly Hunter doesn’t agree and just assumes their distributors will sell whatever product they provide, even when the software is clearly sub par.

Wow, I’m surprised to see so many one star reviews. As someone who develops apps, I find HydrawiseIrrigation pretty solid. Wi-Fi set up was easy and fast, programming zones was intuitive and familiar to other Hunter controller products. I have not had any issues with logouts or crashes. It just works.

The reason for 4 and not 5 stars is simple, the user interface. Some of the features are a little hidden or hard to get to and the design seems minimalistic. If Hunter would update the UI and make some of the controls a little more intuitive , it would be a five star app.

Who creates these apps? Can’t identify my internet I have to spell it out. How does it not know it’s own serial #? Lost internet to controller the 3rd day & it would not let me connect again. After many attempts to set up I had to delete HydrawiseIrrigation & reinstall & it let me install pair again without remembering anything. (3hours). Then the rain sensor said it had stopped future watering. It doesn’t tell you why so you try & make sure it’s paired again. Turned out to be the future forecast. That would have saved me 30 minutes. No customer service at all. They want to use snail mail where they send you troubleshooting videos. Not one of the videos told me to delete app. & start over.

I’m quite disappointing that the Hydrawise controllers don’t have a way to set to skip how many days for example we should be able to skip two days skip three days skip five days etc. it’s very difficult to skip three days on a one week schedule and still be able to run multiple times during that day for example may want to water pots multiple times in one day and then skip to three or four days before they water again I cannot do it with HydrawiseIrrigation I hope this can be changed seems like an easy fix to make it closer to the ICC controllers that have this functionality

The main draw for me were three 1) predictability/tie to a weather station to stop from watering when it rains 2) the ability to control and review from my phone app and 3) the ability to install a flow meter to both a. tell me how much water I am using per zone and b. Let me know of irregular water usage in a zone (a broken head or valve) and potentially shut down a zone automatically.

It does all of the above well. The only issue I had initially was false water usage readings from the flow valve - turned out it needed shielded cable to it to avoid interference.

Can we try to make app a little more user friendly? Maybe add a toggle switch to turn off the sprinkler system for the season? Only way to shutoff system is to schedule watering several months in the future. Another feature would be to suspend upcoming water schedule. This could be simplified by going to the schedule and just pushing the day and hit cancel. The whole app feels very cumbersome and I think it needs a redesign

There are ton of issues with app and the remote access of hunter irrigation in general.
1. Wand constantly disconnects and the button on wand does not work until I restart the system. It is definitely not a weak network because I have a repeater in my garage and very close to the console. What’s the point of spending 100 bucks and still you cannot control irrigation remotely?
2. They just complicated very basic things. When you turn on a zone, it should either turn on or not. It is as simple as that. Instead if controller is not working, it throws a prompt and yet still shows that zone is running and your reports are all messed up. If HydrawiseIrrigation already knows that controller is not responding, why even show animation that zone is running and record false metrics?

I would recommend investing in Rachio system available in costco instead of investing in this Hunter wand with Hydrawise app. I haven’t used Rachio but user reviews are very good

Overall HydrawiseIrrigation works well and is reliable for my 6-zone system. I do agree that the design could be simpler.

Only complaint is that if you have multiple programs (ie seasonal adjustments), it only allows for a start date (month and day); not an end date. So programs end up overlapping. The only viable option is to use the “grow in” option which gives you the ability to set a start and end date, but because it requires a year, you have to reprogram it every year.

You can tell they did not invest at all in any mobile app developers. HydrawiseIrrigation is just a website squashed into an app shell. The controls are absolutely terrible. Touch targets too small. Byzantine workflows. Nothing works like a mobile app should. Charts are useless garbage, not a single one presents any useful data. The bar charts all have overlapping bars that obscure what little data is present. And plenty of features lead into dead ends that require force-quitting HydrawiseIrrigation because it's a website designed for you to use the browser's back button to get out of it... but instead it just locks you into that screen and you can't get out.

Hunter's penny-pinching CxO office should be ashamed. Would they put out a new controller without hiring an EE, ME, etc to work on it? Absolutely not. Yet they believe they can push out a shovelware app to save money on app developers?

Avoid this product if possible. Ask your sprinkler installer if they offer a non-Hydrawise controller. Whatever it takes to avoid this pile of absolute garbage.

I changed cell phones and when I tried to log in again it wouldn’t allow me because I had added a physical security key to my Apple account, and their implementation of Sign in with Apple is not using native iOS APIs for it so doesn’t detect my key.

When I contacted customer support asking for them to improve this and/or provide a workaround like migrating off an Apple account, they told me to call instead of providing a solution or telling me there is none. I don’t want to call them. I don’t want them to have my phone number. I replied kindly asking for online support only to be ghosted.

In the end, I had to take matters into my own hands and remove momentarily my security keys to allow HydrawiseIrrigation to log me in.