Spruce Irrigation 16 Zone WiFi Sprinkler Controller (Gen 2), Compatible with Alexa, Wireless Soil Moisture Sensors, Leak Detection, Flow Meter

Setup was simple. The features of this system are why I purchased a new controller to upgrade from a simple timer. Pairing with a moisture sensor makes this a completely closed loop system for managing my subsurface drip system for my lawn. I was particularly interested in the constants that go into it's calculation for watering times/ frequency and thankfully, this are not only described in detail, but user configurable. For instance, I know exactly how much water in/hour my garden gets because the emitters are all constant-flow. When I adjusted the ET constants for that zone, I have an accurate model of the water level in the bed even w/o the moisture sensor! I use the controller for two non-standard "zones". One is to fill my pool and the other controls misters to keep a chicken coup cool. Spruce doesn't have a clean way to tell it that these are not standard watering zones - i just called them "trees", but I can leave them manual in the spruce app. The real magic happens with the smartthings integration so I can trigger the chicken coup for 15 min when the temp is above 95deg and trigger the pool fill when a z-wave float switch tells ST that it needs water. This saves me having to buy/integrate other connected valves/controllers. Well-worth the investment to save water and $.

I’ve owned this for about six years. The app is simple to use. My only complaint is Wi-Fi connection. Frequently it’ll lose connection with my Wi-Fi and it does not run unless it’s connected to Wi-Fi. It doesn’t resort to a pre-program schedule. If you are gone for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, you may return to find out that there was no watering happening while you were gone. I sold this in a yard sale and bought a generic non-Wi-Fi capable sprinkler system. This is an area where technology fall short.

First of all, if you still have an analog sprinkler controller, upgrading to a smart WiFi-enabled controller will change your life! It makes it super easy to change schedules and turn on particular zones whenever you want by pushing a button in your phone! I’m very happy with this Spruce controller purchase! First of all I needed a 16-zone controller and this was one of the cheapest options. Having also previously owned a Rachio controller, there seems to be basically no difference in terms of functionality. Comparing the Spruce app to Rachio’s is where I see a few differences. While the Rachio app was simpler and a little more intuitive to operate/navigate, it feels like the Spruce app has more built-in features and views. Now that I’ve used it for a couple weeks I do appreciate some of the Spruce features, for example based on my clay soil it automatically splits watering time for each zone into three separate sessions to prevent runoff and saturation. While I’m sure Rachio also has this feature, I never saw it. I still think some views in the Rachio app are easier to understand, like which zones are currently running, about to run, and how long. I should note that setting up the Spruce was just as easy as the Rachio. However with more ways to view water usage and customize running schedules/zones, and also about $75 lower price tag, I highly recommend the Spruce!

I migrated to an old Rainbird to Spruce. I wanted to make sure everything would work from my garage so I connected the unit to wifi before anything else. The wifi connection process was pretty simple and the controller connected right away. The app asks you to set up your zones. That was pretty straightforward, and I only had to enter some simple information. Then I decided to get my wiring set up. I just took a picture of my old wiring and moved everything over to the ports on Spruce and all zones were working after the first try. The zones turn on and off really quickly when you toggle them via the app. I am using a schedule that the system made for me based on the zone information that I put in. So far so good, it's been watering less than my old timer and my lawn still looks great! Alexa integration is really good, I really like that I can turn on zones using their names and not the just the numbers It is so much easier to use this compared to my old manual Rainbird controller. It has prevented watering when it is raining out several times already.

This is absolutely the worst purchase I have made to upgrade my home. By the time you figure out your controller is not working right, you will either have water logged plants from over watering due to extremely long run times (and a higher water bill), dead plants from skipped watering, or fines from the city for wasting water and/or watering during restricted times. I will have to change this controller to scheduled manual watering, which defeats the purpose of buying a smart irrigation system. I have never written a 1 star review. Read on for why this product deserves zero stars: 1. Ad had stated, at the time I purchased, you must have Smartthings to run this through Alexa. Good luck hooking it up. You have to be a programmer practically. In short, no, it is NOT hooked up to Smarthings or Alexa. Minus 1 star. 2. It is constantly going offline. Internet and signal strength are not an issue. This means that your schedules won't run. Read as: your lawn and plants do not get wateted. Minus 1 star. 3. The so called "smart watering" is anything but smart. It runs schedules when it's pouring rain and skips schedules when there has been no rain. So you either waste your water and get water logged plants or your plants shrivel and die when there has been no rain and the irrigation does not run. I have adjusted controller settings and it does not make a difference. Minus 1 star. 4. Run times, when it decides it should run, are extremely long. I'm talking one zone was running for 120 minutes each scheduled day. That is TWO HOURS!! In ONE day!! For one zone only. This means most of that water probably ran off my property down the drain. I do not have a large property, we are talking less than a 1/4 acre and I have 4 zones. I bought this to conserve water, not waste. Yes, you can adjust controller to split up the watering and set max water times, but should you really have to do this with a "smart" controller? Minus 1 star. 5. Recently my power briefly went out. Now the controller runs a supplemental manual schedule at 1pm in the afternoon instead of the scheduled 7pm. The controller knows the time, has the correct time, but still runs at 1pm. Even though I have it restricted to NOT run during the hours of 10am and 6pm due to city water restrictions. No more stars to take away. 6. This controller is putting me at risk for fines from the city for wasting water (extremely long watering times per zone) and watering during unauthorized times (watering during the hottest part of the day).

This is not the first smart controller I installed - so I have a bit of comparison. Spruce is my favorite. Let me add that I am an engineer and always compare gadgets to "the one I would have designed" :-) I wasn't able to arrest my engineering curiosity and peeked inside (voiding warranty): The hardware design is nice and clean. I also like the four push-buttons - in case one hires less technically savvy gardener. In contrast I prefer geeking out with my phone and run back to get my phone if I forget it inside the house ;-) The app is also clean and easy to navigate and offers all the features I may need - yet without making setup complicated. You can get up and running in minutes. Last note: I thought it is too late to install smart controller now at the end of summer. The opposite: Now the weather is less predictable and smart controller shows its smarts. Last week brought some unexpected rain and my old controller would be wasting my water.

I almost sent the product back because when the box arrived it had clearly been previously opened and repacked. The box was a bit dirty, the side seals were resealed, the controller had no plastic bag and had debris all over it as if it had been opened in a backyard and put back in the box. I decided to keep it and see if it worked because it did look OK after I cleaned it up. Install was easy and without issue. The controller connected with ease to my home wifi. I would suggest that the instructions clearly state that the controller should be unplugged when hooking up the zone wiring so as not to short any valves with power on. The instructions actually state there must be power supplied in that section in red with an exclamation point which is bit misleading. The wiring is a bit tight, but I get the need to keep a small footprint and reduce cost based on size. One glitch was that during the install on my phone, the app was ready to test the zones when I paused it do the wiring. Then the app would not resume at that point and I had to hunt around for the 1 minute/zone test routine. When I ran the 1 minute/zone test, the phone app (ios) generated and error message to customer support, but still ran the routine. No other problems though. I have since created a connected program for my lawn and a basic manual program for my tennis court. The watering times the app calculated for my lawn zones were way too high. The system would have watered for hours so I restricted the time window and the app nicely scaled everything down to about where I had my old manual timer set. I did take the time to input all of my zone, lawn and nozzle info. I do find it odd that the number of heads in each zone did not figure into the calculation?? I will update this review when I have more run time on the system. Overall, easy to install, nicely designed product, the app is bit hard to navigate at first, but I am sure I will learn it quickly. Alan W.

The unit has great range using moisture sensors mounted in back of the house in a large yard around 125 foot sensor range. I found I could not get sensors to work on the opposite side of the house at about 75 foot even with ZigBee repeaters in the house that they listed on their web site. I wish it would have worked for my situation. Everyone's situation is different so it is a trial situation in the end to see if it works using wireless sensors. It is a nice controller and I was impressed with all the settings for watering that could be changed for anyone's situation.