Netro Smart 12-Zone WiFi Sprinkler Controller, Weather
Netro Smart 12-Zone WiFi Sprinkler Controller, Weather aware, Remote control
Simple Design
Easy to install
Install or replace your current controller in 15 minutes. No special tools or expertise required.
Up to 6/12 zones + master valve
Magnetic cover Special magnetic cover allows easy access to the wiring for power and control signal
Strong Wi-Fi reception Connects with your home Wi-Fi network stably with enhanced 2.4G antenna
Intuitive User Interface
Your garden is in your hand
– Control and monitor your irrigation system remotely from anywhere
– View and adjust the watering schedules intuitively in a calendar view
– Monitor your water usage and saving
– Smart watering and traditional programs
– Works on phones/tablets (iOS 8.3+ or Android 5.0+)
Works with Google Home You can simply ask Google Home to start and stop watering your garden
Paring Sprite with Whisperer
Sensors
Whisperer and Sprite are the perfect team. Whisperer keeps track of sunlight, temperatures and moisture level, the most important factors that determine the irrigation for your plants.
Wireless Place anywhere around your house
Solar Powered Save on batteries and protect the planet
| Dimensions: | 14.48 x 14.48 x 3.05 cm; 231.33 Grams |
| Model: | Sprite-12 |
| Part: | Sprite-12 |
| Manufacture: | Netro Inc |
| Dimensions: | 14.48 x 14.48 x 3.05 cm; 231.33 Grams |
I am a fan. It took ten minutes to set up and that included removing the old unit. This thing works perfect. No more wondering if I should turn it on or off or leave the settings alone. The reaction based on the weather report has been flawless.
Pros:
– easy install, easy operation
– nothing to program
– knows the weather, waters accordingly
– knows your local watering restrictions
Cons:
– got to have wifi at the controller
– soil type needed but hard to determine
– doesn’t find leaks, but neither do other brands
– plant library could be updated
Spent sometime looking at many different options and prices for a WiFi controller for our irrigation system. I started with the company that services our system each year. There option was $450.00 to $700.00. Our system was installed a about 20 years ago with a Hunter controller. This new WiFi controller was one of the most economical, great app and very easy to use. It replaced our older controller with no issue and installed in 10 minutes. So far so good!
Je l’utilise coupl avec des electrovannes hunter (prendre des 24 V alternatif).
La partie matriel est bonne. La connexion Wi-Fi n’est pas capricieuse et tient bien. Pour mon cas, la centrale est un tage d’cart et loign de ma box. Vrifier qu’elle met en 2,4 GHz ce qui est normalement le cas; dans le cas contraire, son interface de paramtrage le permettra (pas simple si vous tes alergique l’informatique).
Point d’amlioration , l’application mobile est un peu simpliste, mais surtout les libells sont traduits dans un franais approximatif. De mme, le process de connexion et d’authenfication n’est pas des meilleurs de par une suite d’crans mal fichus; mais on fini par comprendre.
Point intressant, le dispositif contient un circuit spcial pour mettre une electrovanne gnrale. Elle se dclenche quelle que soit l’ouverture d’un des circuits. Si une de vos electrovannes venait tomber en panne avec une ouverture constante (ce qui m’est arriv) il faudrait aussi aussi que ce soit le cas de la gnrale pour vous retrouver avec des m3 d’eau consomms pendant des jours.
A moins d’tre sr de soi, inutile de prendre les versions avec 12 ou 16 zones. L’installation complte d’un systme d’arrosage nombreuses zones est un long travail et ncessite des tapes d’apprentissage. Mieux vaut tre bricoleur, outill et avoir du temps passer dans les magasins de bricolage pour jouer avec l’eau.
I removed the clunky old drip system timing controller and the install and setup were done in minutes. The app is intuitive, and importantly adapts the timing to local weather conditions. You can choose the type of plants on each zone, and you can also manually override if you wish.
Hooked in easily to the old existing system (did myself with no sprinkler wiring knowledge) and works a treat. App scheduling etc is great.
Pain in the butt to setup however it seems to work well after that.
After extensive research to determine which irrigation controller I would get to replace my 15-year-old Weathermatic, I decided on the Netro Sprite-12. I have 9 zones and 4 of them are on a steep slope. This controller will split the watering time into smaller intervals which allows for each interval to soak in before getting additional water, thus reducing runoff.
The Netro was very easy to install. I downloaded the app to my phone, I took a picture of the wiring on my old controller, ensuring it was good enough to distinguish the wire colors and zone number each was connected to. Removed the power and all the zone wires, removed the old unit from the garage wall. I then mounted the Netro to the wall and fed the wires into the cavity, trimmed, bent and zip-tied the wires for a somewhat neat appearance, then powered the Netro on and setup the app. It took less than 20 minutes from start to finish.
I purchased the Netro in Jul 2022 (3 months ago). It has more features than my old unit and it controllable with my phone from anywhere. There are many features that I do not use (yet). I would like to get a couple of sensors in the near future to augment the system. It works as expected and I highly recommend the Netro controllers.
Works great. Once set up you can pretty much forget about it. The smart algorithm takes care of proper irrigation based on the weather forecast and temperature. The only critic that I have is that clamps for connecting wires are quite small so make sure your cables are not too thick (<0,75mm2) and it's easier to connect if wires are terminated with pins.
PROS: Easy to install and setup. The instructions were clear and simple to follow. The unit is working very well so far and I like the fact that I can turn sprinklers on demand w/o needing to physically access the box. The App is fairly intuitive and works very well. I don’t use voice controls so can’t comment on Alexa, Google, Siri integration.
Things to consider: The unit has no physical controls, so if the company goes bust and shuts down the app, then you’re stuck with a useless device. So if you’re replacing a conventional controller, better keep it as a backup just in case.
Awesome product. Home DIY 24 sprinkler system. All functionality is based off the app. Clean app interface. Easy to set up. Ran 450ft of 8 conductors 18AWG and the response time on initiating the watering command is extremely quick. Using this on a 8 zone layout. I would highly recommend this product over anything else out there. Thumbs up to the engineering team on this design.
Fcil de usar y muy configurable.
Riego inteligente segun la aplicacin meteorologica seleccionada
This works pretty well. The one thing I do not like is the push-in connectors for the wires. The come out pretty easily. Wire management with this unit is a pain. The plastic case feels sort of flimsy and non-durable like it would break really easily. And the white color is not a good thing if you have this in a garage. Gets dirty easily.
Il prodotto anche bello e compatto fatto e costruito con intelligenza ma non il modello adeguato alle mie esigenze perch non comandabile il locale in caso di necessit funziona solo da App
Moved into our new home that came with a Hunter irrigation system. Unfortunately, the previous owner went with the most basic irrigation controller so I would have to go to the shed to make any changes, and had no clue what or how to schedule. Bought this Netro system and had it connected and the app running within 30 minutes, including connecting it to a pump relay. Took another 20 minutes or so to customize my zones (names, picture, type of soil, slope, amount of shade, etc.) in the app. Since then it has watered automatically based on weather forecast/actual rainfall and I haven’t had to think about it or do a thing. Awesome!
Tras un mes de uso, puedo decir que no est nada mal, sencillo de instalar, cobertura wifi mas que buena y lo nico regular es la app, que por ejemplo no permite abrir y cerrar una zona sin establecer un tiempo, con lo que el tiempo mnimo de apertura de una electrovalvula ser de 1 minuto sin opcion a cerrarla desde la app cuando quieras, siempre hay que esperar a que termine el tiempo.
I had a manual sprinkler timer before. I had replaced it twice and it had no smart features whatsoever. I love this new fully automated sprinkler timer I can control it from my iPhone and it automatically knows when it’s going to rain and doesn’t run I’ve already saved money on my water bill and the customer service is outstanding. Plus I don’t have to go down to the garage every time I wanna change the time or water zone I just do it all from my iPhone
I’ve trashed my new Hunter Pro-C controller for the Netro Sprite 12. It’s been raining steadily since installing it so I don’t yet have experience with the smart programming. Installation was a piece of cakeeven with my rat’s nest of wires. Initial tests passed with flying colours. After reviewing the features of the app, the Netro controller does everything I wished my Hunter could do. Will update this if my performance expectations are not met.
I included pictures of the old unit in case anyone else has the same one and wants to know if it was compatible (that was my main question).
I had a leak in my supply line in the back yard. Being able to switch the sprinkler zone on for 30 seconds, see where the water is pooling up, dig, turn it back on and follow where it’s bubbling up, and repeat was SO MUCH QUICKER with the app. Otherwise I’d have to run back and forth from the shed to the watering zone.
My toddler also loves running through the sprinklers and it’s great to be able to just switch them on without going into the shed is great!
Other than that, this thing gets the weather forecast. I’ve set it so that if it is supposed to water today but it will rain tomorrow, it’ll skip the day before a rain and the day after. This will help save water and is just plain cool! There are more features (like the ability to add photos of the different stations) that I haven’t set up yet. I have a buddy with a DJI mini and I’m going to have him take aerial photos that I can label so I know what stations are what (the previous owner had labels for the zones, but they aren’t super intuitive).
Edit: The price when I purchased this was $159.99+ free shipping. It recently went up to $199.99. I have also found a few of the weather providers to be inaccurate when it comes to rain. I am using the OpenWeatherMap one and it seems to be accurate enough now.
I had an old controller when I bought my house, one that was manual with the need to program every time the power went down.
I wanted something easy to use, wifi-controllable, and smart enough to know when it was going to rain.
The Netro has been a great fit for what I was after. It is very simple to install from an older controller. Getting it set up was quick (5 mins to install, 2 mins to program). Make sure when replacing old controller you know what zones are which wires – which will make the setting up of each zone much easier.
I can’t say I’m saving water – the bill has not come in to compare to last year yet – but I can say that there are many times it doesn’t even try to water because of some rain that occurred, which is awesome.
It really is a easy setup and a pretty simple “set it, and forget it” type of product. My grass is green, my garden is growing, and it doesn’t run nearly as often as I had my previous controller.
Would recommend.
Soy de Chile y por lo menos desde hace un ao vengo viendo y leyendo reviews de diversos programadores inteligentes (con administracin de riego segn previsin del tiempo) por wifi. Vi muchos pero finalmente tom la decisin por Netro por lo siguiente 1) Nmero de zonas (12 en mi caso), 2) valor del producto (sali USD 190 puesto en chile con tasas aduaneras y despacho prioritario y 3) funciones adicionales o complementos (ya que lo bsico es la administracin remota va app y el manejo del riego de acuerdo a la previsin del tiempo).
Apenas lleg sabia que haba tomado la eleccin correcta, el diseo del producto y la forma en la cual se instala est muy bien pensado para que lo haga cualquier persona. La configuracin va app es fcil y al momento de dejar todo listo vas indagando en la aplicacin, te das cuenta de la forma de personalizacin de cada zona (tipo de suelo, especie primaria y secundaria en la zona, programacin de riego inteligente).
Este programador para mi se ha vuelto vital ya que actualmente obtengo agua de napas subterrneas y estas escasean cada cierto tiempo, si a eso le sumamos que estoy empezando mi huerto urbano (para el cual estoy considerando solo riego por goteo) se hace imprescindible el poder contar con variables tan bsicas administradas de la mejor forma posible.
Ahora estoy a la espera del sensor Netro Whisperer que con la informacin que captura puedo retroalimentar simultneamente a 3 zonas de riego para entregar informacin precisa y local (complementada con la informacin disponible en la nube) de la exposicin a la luz y nivel de humedad del sustrato, haciendo el riego an ms eficiente.
No haba visto la opcin de compra el producto va suscripcin de servicio (USD 29.99/ao) lo cual hace que el producto llegue en lo general sin tasas de aduana y a un valor que es ms asequible para cualquier persona o microempresa que quiera tecnificar su riego de forma sencilla y econmica.
1) Installation was simple. It took me longer to find a drill bit to mount it than it did to hang and wire it.
2) The installation quick start guide was well written and easy to follow. Each step worked exactly like it should.
3) The app is extremely intuitive and has tons of flexibility.
4) The fact that my programs are stored in the cloud is SO much better than when it was on the device. Power would go out, and of course the 9V battery in my old unit would be weak, so I’d have to turn the dial and set each zone, etc…no more!
5) the app also gives you tons of data on how much you’ve watered and the moisture in the soil.
6) the price. I don’t understand how this is so much less expensive than other smartphone controlled units. I had to keep rereading the description about what the device does because I couldn’t believe what I was getting for my money.
7) Alexa enabling work flawlessly…I can’t think of when I would use it except if I wanted to turn a zone off or on manually, but it was easy to set up.
I’ve put this through the ringer, and I can’t really find anything I dislike about it!
Great Product.
If you are familiar with setting up Wi-Fi devices (plugs, audio, speakers) you will find the setup to be very easy. As far as the sprinkler controller, I was replacing a defective standard timed system where I would set the days/durations to water. WIth the new Netro system, I walked the yard an manual turned on all 10 zone from my app. They turned on and off with the push of a start/stop button on the screen. This app has the ability to “take control” of setting actual watering days, durations, start times based on their algorithm using a number of variables including: type of soil, plant type, yard slope, sunny or shady, etc. The app also monitors the weather in your area so it can modify watering schedules to save water using a Smart Zone algorithm if for example it has rained recently. I have not evaluated the Smart Zone feature, but will give it a try, since it sounds very powerful. You can always go back to setting your own schedule by turning off this feature.
Hardware
I have no any objection on the hardware. It is compact and light, at least half of the weight than my Orbit Control Star 9 zone controller (#57258). Installation is straightforward, you click the wires that goes to the water valves by pushing a tab on top of the terminal. One thing I have noticed is that the tabs in Netro are extremely stiff to press by nails compared to my Orbit. Use a screw driver will save you a lot of troubles. The packaging is great. However, very little information is included. You got a piece of card showing how to install on the wall, download the app, etc.
App
This is where Netro falls short. I felt I am using a bare bone app (indeed, it is version 1.3.1). Worse, the setup is not as smooth as I would like to have. Like typical internet connected device, to connect Netro to the wifi, first you select Netro as your wifi access point and the app will guide you to a window where you can select your router and then enter the router password. First time I tried, I got a screen of “your Android phone is not compatible with the Netro_xxx WiFi network. Please try with different phone” After a few twists by disabling the cellular data from my cell phone, I finally got it to the WiFi selection windows and finished the setup.
This experience is so similar to the beta version of Ring Doorbell.
My Netro App crushed several times during the setup, especially when I enter the information of each zone and plants and searching for other information. Say, you are googling for the names of your plants so you can put the information in. Once you left Netro and do google search, it automatically reset itself back to its home page. Information on what you have entered before you google are gone. You have to repeat key-in the information. This is very annoying. Not to mention if you have received email notification, txt, etc. during the setup… Good luck with that.
Netro also only allows you put one plant species per zone in the information box. This seems odd, as NO one is planting ONLY one kind of plant per location. Wouldn’t it be nice you can put in all your plants info, and the app then calculate the average water needed?
I also found Netro tends to water too much. Way too much! Fortunately, you can change the parameters (% EPA) to force it to water less. But I wonder if it is using the information correctly, then I don’t need to these extra steps. Here in California, water is like gold. I definitely do not want my water bill go up.
Although Amazon does not sell the remote sensor, Whisperer, I think it is worthy to mention here. One strong selling point of Whisperer is that it can sense the moisture, thus you have more accurate information of how much water needed for irrigation. First thing I notice is that Whisperer needs be charged before giving you the battery level. Also, solar charging takes forever. After three days under the sun, it is still only 39% charged. Interesting speaking enough, my whisperer initially never gives information beyond 10% even I have soaked it pretty wet. After emails to Netro’s tech support, I have realized that I have to take the V-shaped plastic edge out. Now the Whisperer works like a champ.
Overall, based on the price (it is $145 for 12 zone. Compared to Rachio or RainMachine, you are saving about 100 bucks), I think it is an ok buy. Unlike my Orbit Control Star (I got it about 79 bucks), you can remote-control your sprinklers on and off, and you have individual programs tailoring to each zones. But does it worthy to spend double than my Orbit? For me, it is justified but its App leaves me wishing for more.
I do wish the app can be more stable. It crushes 3 out of 5 times. Maybe its App will be more polished in the future
Installation was simple. Just to make sure it would work I sent a photo of the old controller wiring in an e-mail to their support asking for feedback, and they replied 45 min. later with a detailed message. Awesome!
They say 15 minutes to install, and I am sure it is true – but it took me 30 minutes because my c-wire was connected to a rain sensor (which wasn’t even working by the way) and I wanted to make sure its the c-wire. Looking back now, if my family or friends order this thing I will install it for them in maybe 10 min. tops. Turned it on – connected the app – walked around the house and messed with all 7 of my zones turning them on/off from my phone – oh the power at my fingertips – I remembered when I would have to run back to the controller to figure out which sprinklers are for what zone – ughh.
I was able to find one broken sprinkler, one that needs to be adjusted, and a few that need some maintenance. After having fun with turning them on/off, and labeling each zone with a unique name – then came the real stuff. The app didn’t find regulations or restrictions in my area (North Texas) but I knew them anyways. I put the restricted days and times, and viola – the app gave me a schedule within no time that even I couldn’t say no to. I put the soil type for each zone (I know my house is sitting on clay), and viola (again), schedule readjusts! That is truly awesome. If it rained, is raining, or will rain, again, the schedule will adjust. If you don’t like that, you can turn that feature off. I can go on and on about this awesome product, but here is why you need to get it and stop thinking about other ones like I was:
-The controller has no buttons on it because there is no point in going to your garage/outside/wherever you put it to do the same thing you can do on your phone (or tell Alexa, btw, which I have done and it is awesome)
-You can buy sensors and put them next to plants for unique watering schedules, and more – it is just like the ecobee and their temp. sensors – no other product has that (which I don’t have by the way, but its nice to know its possible)
-It is significantly cheaper than all other units that don’t do as much as this
I can go on and on, but I highly recommend this product. I thought I didn’t need it – but after realizing how much water (and money) I could save by irrigating smartly, I went for it and as you can tell I am now a fanatic.
Documentation is really minimal, but the FAQs on their website and customer reviews on Amazon are helpful. You can also learn it quickly by just “playing” with it. I had some questions for technical support and they called or emailed me within a day, even on weekends. They even patiently walked me through a scheduling setup to make sure I got it. I wish more vendors offered this level of support.
In addition to the pictures they suggest of the current wiring in your existing controller (if replacing) I cut my wires at the existing controller and left a bit of color so if I had any questions, they were still attached.
I have attached pictures of what I am referring to. One is old and other is new. You can see where I cut the old wires so I had easy reference. Over 20 years ago they used two wires of 6 underground cable so I have 2 identical colors of everything. Just be careful and know which wire is which zone when you reattach to the sprite if you want to keep the same zones.
1 month in- convenience of the app on the phone is wonderful and the connection to Dark Sky for precipitation report for my zip code has been awesome to help determine if we need to water. This is one of the best “may not need right now- but gotta have it!” purchases I have made all year.
Thanks Netro!
Being a relatively new product I was skeptical about purchasing it but once bought and installed, I love it! I’ve been wanting to buy a WiFi controller for years and finally pulled the trigger with a very reasonably priced unit. Since it was so inexpensive, I was a little concerned, but once installed, it is easy to use and saved me a ton on my water bill. I travel and can turn off my water from anywhere I am. It also has the smart feature to turn itself off if enough rain is forecasted. I Love It!
No more running back and forth to the garage to turn on and off zones. It’s all on my phone. If I see a dry spot, I just grab my phone and turn on that zone for a few minutes while sitting on my coach.
No more sprinkler box in my garage. I’ve placed mine in my storage area where the controller wires come into the house and that’s the last you’ll ever see of it.
One more point on Netro’s customer support. I didn’t understand how to reconnect my WiFi and wrote and email to their support group expecting a response in a week if any. 10 minutes later I received a call wanting to help me. AMAZING and shocked! The support person kindly guided me through the process and I was back up and running in 2 minutes.
Highly recommend Netro and this is from a guy who installed and repaired sprinkler systems for many years in high school, college and many years after.
I really like the product. I replaced two older controllers, a 6 zone and a 4 zone – I have 10 zones. The install took about 30 minutes to do and another 30 minutes testing zones. That is one of the greatest benefits – testing zones anytime you replace or change sprinklers or valves is much easier since you can do it all from your phone…and you can see if you’re zones are running or start zones even if your’re not at home.
I haven’t found the Smart Zone watering to be quite as dynamic as I’d hoped – I live in a climate that gets very hot, dry and windy – the Smart Zone watering tended to underwater significantly so most of my zones I have set up my own schedules. Currently the system only allows a maximum of 60 minutes per schedule cycle – if you want to water a zone more than 60 minutes, you have to to set your schedule to run that zone more than once. An improvement would be to allow more than 60 minutes – I’d like to see that increased to at least 6 hours.
All things considered, for the price and function it is a very good product and well worth it.
The Sprite is exactly what I was looking for, 12 station and master valve support with an intuitive app. I use the master value to turn on the pump for my well to water my yard and it works flawlessly.
The app is awesome. I can create programs of my own or use the intelligence built into the Sprite. The intelligence takes into account plant types, the ground sloping and weather conditions. Since I use well water, grit sometimes gets in the sprinkler heads and I need to open the spray of the head all the way to clear the grit. I use the app to turn on the station for the line I’m working on and I no longer have to go into the garage to turn the station on and off. I now do it from my phone which is VERY convenient.
The technical support is AWESOME as I sent an email at 9:15PM and got a response WITHIN MINUTES and we used FaceTime to sort out the issue.
I WILL BE ORDERING 2 MORE Sprites, one for each of my daughters houses (being “the dad”, I get to do a lot of fun maintenance) and this will make my life a lot easier.
UPDATE: 2021-07-22
It’s been a while and I finally installed the 3rd Sprite today. Installation was flawless (except that I couldn’t read my daughter’s post it with her WiFi password and put it in wrong, LOL). My other two Sprite 12 controllers have been running perfectly since I first installed them (several years now).
This smart sprinkler system is wonderful and, what makes it amazing and puts it at the top of list for me is the customer service, and I mean customer service that I didn’t think even existed anymore! My town has water restrictions that are different than most (interval restrictions allowing watering only every 3rd day, which is different depending on the house number, and only during certain hours), which was not an option when creating a new water restriction in the program. I emailed customer service and got a response the same day (thank you so much Xi!!!!). Xi took the time and effort to research my town’s water restrictions, ask me specific questions and then create the special water restriction just for my system. I cannot speak highly enough of the customer support I received. Just the fact that they have a setting for areas with water restrictions is wonderful as the manual sprinkler systems were so challenging to set up around odd restrictions and some of the smart systems do not offer this option that I could find in my research.
As for the sprinkler itself, set up took 5 minutes or less (installation and linking it to my smart phone). When I first starting setting up the zones I set up a schedule as I did not see a smart schedule populate (or was simply messing with it before it had a chance to set up a smart schedule) so I set up a watering schedule. Doing this created 2 sets of watering that I later had to go back and remove. I guess my eagerness and excitement of setting up the system caused the extra effort but maybe a window or pop-up to notify the user that a smart schedule will be created and/or a notification that a smart schedule has been created would be beneficial.
The only other thing I found was that I had to play with the settings for a little while after my 2’x10′ strip of lawn got 30 minutes of watering to figure out that there is an option to set the square footage of each zone so a smaller sized zone doesn’t get the same amount of water as the larger zones as the location of this setting is not in a place I would have originally thought to look. Now that I know it is in the advanced settings within the schedule preference it was easily modified. I would recommend to the company that this be a part of the initial setup process or locating somewhere more prominently than within the schedule itself.
I also had one incidence where I manually stopped the watering but the sprinklers did not respond (they continued to water despite the system saying they were off). I was able to fix the issue with a little more playing (I turned on a manual schedule and then turned that off and that fixed the problem). I cannot say if this issue was the system or a side effect of my playing with the schedule though so can in no way fault the smart system for that.
I look forward to many years of watering that I don’t even have to think about and am really excited to receive the 2 sensors I pre-ordered to complete my system and make the most of this smart sprinkler system, especially since I live in an area where water is almost more expensive than gold!
I’ve tried one other smart sprinkler controller brand that starts with “R” and ends in “ainMachine” (RM). It’s more than twice the cost and delivers similar features, but I don’t need the fancy touch screen (b/c I don’t want tenants messing with it). The only difference I’m aware of is that Netro requires the cloud to operate properly (FAQ says it’ll work for 30 days w/o connection to the cloud), but the RM brand unit can work independently and indefinitely if the cloud goes down. Since I’m not worried about Netro’s cloud going down, this product difference isn’t a concern for me.
The App takes some getting used to, but so does the RM app. Neither app is significantly better, so it’s a tie for me there.
For price and simplicity, I’lll keep buying these for our rental properties as long as they’re available.
– So, why I’m not giving 5 starts.
Nowadays, WIFI devices for home automation should support Amazon Alexa and Apple Homekit. That would make this device unbeatable considering the price and features. For now, a solid 4.
Keep up the good work Netro Inc. Well done.
– Update Jun 21 2017
The controller stopped working. The lights were on however on the APP it indicated as offline. So, I called Netro Inc and Support spent around 10 minutes trying to debug and indicated my unit was faulty. They are sending me a new unit at no charge. Expecting it in the next couple of days. Great customer support !
This controller was very easy to install, and the application for the iPhone is very straightforward and simple. I was revitalizing a 30 year old sprinkler system that was broken and neglected. In the process of replacing all of the valves, some pipe segments, and all of the sprinkler heads, I had to turn the sprinkler zones on and off frequently. The Netro allowed me to turn the sprinklers on and off from the yard without having to walk back to the controller, which saved me a lot of time and frustration.
In a couple of minutes, the app allowed me to fine tune the zones to the conditions in my yard – several slopes and some flat areas with very different sun exposures. I also have dense clay soil, and with the slopes I needed a system that would water in bursts so that I don’t waste water and also prevent erosion. After answering some basic questions about the zones, the Netro figured everything out automatically and is simply working. It was so simple I thought I missed something and went to their website to review the instructions, for the first time, and it turned out I was done.
I am waiting for the new add-on yard sensors (called the Whisperer) to be released and plan to try a couple of those. They are supposed to integrate with the Netro and feed more information about the soil and sun levels so it can intelligently manage the watering. The watering help seems great, but to start, I want to move the sensors around to different areas to figure out exactly how much sun different areas of my yard get so I can get plants well suited for different areas.
Setup:
I took a picture of my old wiring and used it to connect to the Netro Smart. I then pulled the old one off the wall and put the new one back in the same place. There are very small buttons that at first I did not realize you had to push hard to get the wires inserted far enough to hold. These buttons need to be a little bigger or have an easier way of pushing. After getting all the wires connected you install the application. Note: The application is very hard to find on a iPhone. You have to look through all the racing games and find it 20 or 30 down. The application will walk you through all the setup. It will connect to the Netro Smart WiFi then to your wireless network.
Programming Your Watering:
After the application is setup you have to go to settings and settings and enable all the zones (sprinklers ) you are using. I put everything manual to start with. If you do that, you have to go into the Schedule page and tell the application all the days and times you would like to water. Anytime you want you can go to the home page and manually run any zone that is enabled.
Support:
I wish the had a good video on the setup and how to use their application. The one thing they do have that is great is in the application under settings there is a “Support” selection that allows you to send them an email. They respond very quickly 7 days a week.
Final thoughts:
In full automatic mode this system does everything for you and will help you save water and keep you from killing your grass and plants. Do your self a favor and purchase one of these before they move the price up to what it should be.
The Netro sprinkler controller is very well designed. There is no buttons or dials to mess with, which I really like. Simple and beautiful. The semi-glossy front panel has a moderate and satiny luster. An LED will light up the logo nicely from the back when the controller is powered up. It looks great in my garage, like a little brother of the Tesla Powerwall.
I did not enter any programs. The Netro’s “smart zone” feature works as expected. It waters more frequently for the zones with more sunlight. It also predicted future rains to prevent watering. I don’t think there are water regulations in my area this year so I cannot say too much about the auto-restriction feature. The Android version of the Netro app has a different layout and style comparing to the provided pictures, though all the functionalities are included.
So far I really love this controller and the app. I am waiting for the launch of their plant sensors.