Rachio 8-Zone Sprinkler Controller(Open Box)

I am an Australian customer. I purchased my Rachio Gen 2 approximately one year ago. I am going to outline my experience with the product and also my service experience: The Product. The Rachio Gen2 (8 Station) is a wonderful product. It is very easy to install and it is truly Smart. It configures itself for optimal performance, based on the inputs one provides - soil type, plant type, sun, shade, etc. I could have bought a locally supplied controller however some of those brands wanted an annual subscription fee in order to incorporate weather data, which enables to controller to skip watering when it rains, when it's too windy or the ground is saturated, etc. With those local brands, I was ostensibly getting a "Dumb" controller, unless I coughed up an additional $60 p.a. Basically, they wanted me to pay for data which is freely provided by the Bureau of Meteorology and other weather sources. No way! With Weather Intelligence Plus®, Rachio can aggregate 270,000 personal and commercial weather stations worldwide, for extreme accuracy. If you prefer, you can also choose the weather station you want. If it were to go down, Rachio will automatically find and connect to the next nearest and available weather station; that's very cool! The other thing that I liked when researching Rachio, was that the company appeared to genuinely "love" its product. It had a significant knowledge base and an online forum, with very active and supportive customers. People really like their gardens and they really Rachio! So I bought a Gen 2 and fired it up. It was fantastic. It has a great phone App, which offers numerous Smart watering features that I can easily control, override. My Rachio Gen 2 is happy to either do everything for me or allow me full manual control over my watering, and every shade in between. Being a Smart controller, it can be accessed anywhere in the world where there is either a wifi connection or cellular phone access. In February this year, during our hot Australian summer, we travelled to Northern India and then Vietnam. we were away for approximately one month. I had left the garden watering, to Rachio. As it hit 44 C. in Melbourne, while we were away, I has able to allay my paranoia by running some additional, non-scheduled watering from India and Vietnam. It was comforting to get an SMS back from my controller once they started and had completed. Please see the images of the pumpkin plant blocking our gate, on our return home! The Rachio is everything the company claims it to be; it's excellent and it's fun! My brother subsequently bought a Gen 2 as well for his farm and he is delighted with it. After-sales Service. Rachio provides first-class service! My background: I am a Director of an agricultural machinery company. Our point of differentiation is our exceptional pre-sales and after-sales service. We don't just play lip-service to this: we are fully committed to providing great service and building long relationships with our customers. Similarly, Rachio doesn't just talk the talk: it walks the walk. My experience with Rachio customer service follows: I recently attempted to activate terminals 7 & 8 of my Gen 2 controller. These hadn't been used before and I had some new vegetable beds to water. They did not work. The App indicated that they should be working but the weren't. Having a background in IT, I had experience in fault finding and went about A-B testing by connecting different solenoids to different controller terminals. I was able to rule out faulty solenoids. I subsequently emailed Rachio Support, which responded *promptly and courteously*. There is a significant time difference between the USA and Australia however depending on what time I sent emails, there was either a response that day or first thing, the next morning. To summarize my experience: 1. I was asked to try a potential but it failed. 2. The Support person, Skyler, then advised that he would send me a new controller straight away. 3. I advised Skyler that I wanted to do one more test, before he sent it. That subsequent test failed too. 4. I advised Skyler of this failure and provided delivery details. He responded quickly and said the new unit was on the way. 5. The replacement controller arrived in 4 DAYS!!!! That's from Colorado (I believe) to Melbourne, Australia in 4 days, free of charge! This was an unbelievably good turnaround. 6. The problem with zones 7 & 8 persisted with the new controller. (The fault appeared to have been copied over). 7. A senior technician, Jared, contacted me **without my having to ask**. He was very keen to sort out the problem. 8. He suggested a factory reset and voila! The new unit worked and so did the original controller once it was reset. At no stage did I think I was a burden... indeed - I was "thanked" on numerous occasions for assisting them with the diagnosis. In the end, I believe the problem was a small glitch in an earlier version of the firmware. The company hadn't seen it before, hence its taking a few days to sort it out. I reiterate - from timely communication, diagnosis to delivery half way around the world in 4 days of a replacement controller, Rachio's customer service was exceptional. I thoroughly recommend this company and its products to everyone on the planet. Suggestions for improvement? Rachio may have attended to this already but if not, I would recommend that the required power supply, depending on your country, is nominated and supplied at the time of the order. I had to purchase a local 230V. power supply (AUD $20) as my original unit came with a 110V P/S. It would just make a great product a little bit better and besides, this product deserves to be sold worldwide, in large volumes because it's so good! Disclosure: I've written this superlative review for no other reason than those contained in it. Buy with confidence.