Orbit 57946 B-hyve Smart Sprinkler System Controller for Indoor and Outdoor Use

Joe Wong: I bought this to replace my old Hunter X-Core, which is malfunctioning after more than 15 years. I could not use my Hunter Solar Sync with this unit, but the sensor can be connected although I don't know whether it works because I did not see any "shut-off" after it rained. I did activate the "sensor" feature. This activation featuer is not very friendly. It does not indicate to me whether the sensor is really working when there has been rain.
Also, I find that the "Smart Watering" is not what it featured to be. When I set the parameter to "smart watering", after answering all the questions abnout soil, etc., the watering seems to be too long, e.g. it watered my lawn 6 min x 3, which resulted in flooding my lawn. A Google search told me that a lot of Reddit users ended up turning off the "smart watering" system. B-Hyve should name this control as a dumb watering system.
In fairness, I like the WiFi feature and the manual zone watering, compared to my old Hunter, which I have to go to the control to turn on each zone if I want any manual watering. With the WiFi, I just turn on the zones with my cell phone app as needed when I do my watering and find that I need more watering.

United States on Nov 12, 2023

James C.: I bought this to replace a perfectly good, working Orbit manual controller. My decision was based on two reasons 1) to have wifi control of the sprinklers when away and 2) to reduce my water bill though better application of water when needed.

Physical installation was pretty straightforward, requiring exchanging the existing wiring with new wiring. Screw holes didn't align (not even close) so I had to drill new holes into my concrete wall.

Initial setup was very easy. Download the B-Hyve app, connect via bluetooth, setup the Wifi, etc.

Next you can name the zones, etc and do basic configuration of the system.

I chose to set up a program for my four zone to start. This was easy, but does not require entering any "detailed" information about the sprinklers, soil type or other information that is used only by "smart watering". Once I did this, I was able to control all the zone from the app. The program works perfectly and all is good so far.

NOW for the bad news. Smart Watering is a joke. I set up all the zone "detail information", etc. That is pretty easy to do. But, if you want any information on how Smart Watering works, forget about...

United States on Sep 19, 2023

TCalgary: Put this in as a replacement for a non-connected unit and so far is awesome. Easy to install, configure, and connect to remotely. I really like the auto rain delay feature.

Canada on Sep 07, 2023

Chadwick Gee: The best thing anyone could do to their irrigation system. This has simplified the watering process so much. The app makes going to the box a thing of the past to manually water zones. I think I’ve only had the door open once on the unit. I was apprehensive about the Smart Watering feature. Word of advise, set up your zone profiles, wait for a good rain and for your system to adapt to the weather forecasts, which will then hopefully show your zones at 100% moisture after a decent rain fall, then select Smart Water and never touch it again. Very happy with this unit. Huge improvement over a non wifi Orbitz. Highly recommend. Bought in May - no issues all summer.

Canada on Sep 02, 2023

Mark Runcie: I swapped out an older Rainbird for this Wifi unit. Very happy with it. It programs very easily and whether running manual watering or scheduled programs, it is set up very nice in the software. It has all the features you would want (I don’t use all of them). Mounting and wiring was easy since it was a simple swap out. I like that I can run it remotely with my phone but should I ever need to run from the controller I can easily do that too.
I think the price is good for the product.
Update: The history of watering does not show up in the calendar every time. If it does it’s a few days later. Useful feature but not always there

Canada on Aug 16, 2023

Fergs: Replaced an older Rainbird unit to get wifi control of app. As summer approaches the need to change settings for gardens, potted plants and lawn, where a pain to do it manually. The system was simple to set up just take photos of your old systems hook up so you know your zones. The app is one of the best apps I’ve used for a Wi-Fi system app, easy to understand, walks you through the set up, and afterwords you can do just about anything quickly on your phone and control your whole system. I didn’t even have to do any set up on the Internet self just hook up plug-in and everything else was done on my phone. Wish I would’ve done this year’s ago. I only have four zones, and this model is capable of six zones, which is plenty for most people, if you need more you will pay a little more like any system but this makes system makes it worth investing in.

Canada on Jun 29, 2023

Matt C.: From the moment I opened the box until now over a month later, I am 100% happy with this unit.
Replacing my old controller was an absolute breeze. The box comes with detailed instructions for removing whatever you currently have in place and putting in the new controller. All can be done with common household tools, thought they do provide a small flathead screwdriver in the box for the smaller screws that hold the wires in place.
All in all I had it mounted in about 30 minutes, and that included me spending some extra time hiding the wiring a bit better than I had it setup before.
The guide has you connect the controller to the app, and the app takes it from there, letting you test, name, and customize each zone.
The app is quite robust, allowing for people who REALLY know what they're doing to setup smart programs that account for the number of heads, the type of soil, sun exposure, etc. etc. I'm a little more down-to-basics, so I've just set mine to run on zone timings which also works perfectly. That's the true sign of a good app - have the features there for people who want to use them, but also have it easy enough to use that someone like me can just setup the...

Canada on Aug 07, 2020

Neoprimal: The wife and I invested in our first home a year and a few months ago. I'd decided from the get go that I wanted a smart home. We got a mega deal because we bought what is essentially a "cookie-cutter" home, ie: the builders plans and we pick a model - we couldn't make any changes. This was fine for us because why spend thousands on "upgraded" appliances and features when you can't even pick the ones you want? Better to start off cheap and then pay for what we want. That's a lot of preface for a sprinkler, but I'm going somewhere with this.

When you buy cheap and then pay for what you want, to me it ends up working out better. We made a big decision in buying our home and it's a place and home we plan to spend our lives in as long as no acts of God get in the way of that. So far I've been dutifully making my home smart. Starting with all light switches changed to occupancy/vacancy and or wifi/dimmer switches, all bulbs are now LED with some being Wifi/Dimmer capable, some smart cameras around the place, etc. When you're "smartifying" your home you can either do it all at once if you have that kind of money, do it cheapest to most expensive stuff or do it most expensive to...

United States on May 24, 2018