Orbit B-hyve XR sprinkler timer overview: One in every of the one sparkling irrigation systems

Three years after its first steps into sparkling irrigation systems, Orbit’s B-hyve ticket is assist with its most superior sparkling watering hardware yet. The original B-hyve XR is stuffed with functions, so let’s dive into it.

For starters, the hardware—a chunky machine that weighs extra than two pounds—is designed for both indoor or exterior installation, with out a extra housing required. (That mentioned, the machine is clearly no longer entirely water resistant, so I’d present giving it some stage of protection in case you’re mounting the XR exterior.)

This overview is phase of TechHive’s protection of the one sparkling sprinkler controllers, the save you’ll derive critiques of competing products, plus a purchaser’s files to the functions you can possess to quiet capture into consideration when having a peek for this form of machine.

A row of connectors beneath a removable panel supports as much as eight valves (or 16 valves for the next model up, which charges an additional $30) and entails room for a rain or freeze sensor. Appealing to the sparkling irrigation save, the XR entails no external energy brick (which is one motive it’s exterior pleasant); the transformer is as a exchange built into the first housing. This moreover helps to expose its overall size and weight.

Orbit

As with most sparkling watering systems, your valve leads save via straightforward wire clips. (The earlier B-hyve required wiring to be hooked up with diminutive screws.) I within the origin tried inserting my leads into these clips and conception they had been linked, only to search out that after I ran a test watering drag, nothing occurred. After some trial and blunder, I came all the method thru that the XR requires rather lengthy wiring leads, and these leads want to be inserted with a indispensable quantity of power in bellow to serve. I ended up trimming and re-stripping my wiring to enhance the connection, after which the total lot worked stunning.

With the B-hyve XR powered up, you’ll swiftly seek its most attention-grabbing feature: A panel of three diminutive, coloration LCD screens built into the hexagonal assemble sample on the housing. These micro-shows provide you with some overall facts about your diagram, including the most modern climate and the time and date of your next scheduled drag time. Surprisingly, the climate document only entails the general situation (sunny, raining, and so on.) but no longer the temperature, which would were a tiny bit extra precious.

Christopher Null / IDG

As soon as your hardware is configured, it’s time to make employ of the B-hyve app to connect the diagram to Wi-Fi. Both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks are supported, and I had no danger bringing the XR on-line, after which I may well perhaps commence configuring my watering zones. Adore most up-to-date sprinkler controllers, the B-hyve XR gives both manual and “sparkling” watering applications, the latter developing what it thinks is an supreme watering agenda in accordance with answers you provide about the scale, situation, and composition of your backyard or backyard.

Christopher Null / IDG

After telling the app about the soil, plant forms, sprinkler heads, ground slope, and sun situation, my diagram urged a considerably irregular sparkling watering agenda: two 18-minute soaks, one very most attention-grabbing after the opposite, working as soon as every three days. I don’t know if here is de facto water my vegetation, as I know a smaller quantity of water day-after-day tends to work only in my backyard. The total quantity of water being delivered over the path of a week, then all as soon as more, used to be impartial correct about very most attention-grabbing.

Can possess to you may well perhaps perhaps love to stunning-tune things, B-hyve supports prefer cups, whereby you bodily measure the actual quantity of water your diagram is striking out, and then employ that files to tweak its programming. As smartly, in case you may well perhaps perhaps impartial possess a Flume water-leak diagram installed, a original partnership with that company lets you make employ of its files to measure exactly how much water each zone is the utilization of. If the numbers with out observe jump, that’s a signal that there’s a leak or crash somewhere on your irrigation tubing. This feature is available now, but Orbit says it won’t be entirely utilized unless the pause of the 300 and sixty five days.

Can possess to you don’t love B-hyve’s sparkling agenda, it’s easy to disable. The diagram entails four manual program schedules that you may well perhaps perhaps customize, and all 5 of these schedules (including the sparkling agenda) may well perhaps even be became on and off personally or all drag simultaneously. In case your municipality has watering restrictions, you may well perhaps perhaps consist of this files as a form of grasp override over all applications to forestall water from flowing all the method thru certain days or instances.

Christopher Null / IDG

The diagram entails configurable push notifications, but only for warnings and when watering is done, no longer when it starts. Alexa and Google Residence are both supported and rather robustly, letting you utilize your tell to drag on-question watering applications, prolong an upcoming agenda, and extra.

B-hyve’s app in all fairness intuitive, but its greatest flaw is how it offers future and historical watering files. A day to day calendar gives you a peek at the watering agenda previous and show conceal, then all as soon as more it’ll only match about a hours of a single day on the show conceal at a time, that method you’ll want to scroll up and down and save loads of switching between days to uncover an correct sense of what’s going on. There’s moreover a “watering historical previous” feature deep within the settings menu, but this only shows you the leisure time that water used to be drag, no longer a reliable historical previous of watering occasions. If B-hyve overhauls the calendar to be extra functional, it’ll scuttle a lengthy method toward bettering its overall usability.

The B-hyve XR moreover entails onboard controls that enable you to avoid wasting loads of things by interacting with the hardware, sans app, but here is basically a omitted opportunity: There’s only a single button on the front of the XR, and you utilize that to avoid wasting the total lot, thru combos of short presses and lengthy presses of that one button. Figuring this out isn’t easy, so B-hyve entails an exhaustive cheat sheet on the inner of the flap that covers the wiring leads. But it’s written in diminutive form, so you’ll want to prefer it entirely to avoid wasting any employ of it. And frankly, all of here is de facto convoluted; it’s much less complicated to impartial correct employ the app moderately than futz with the button.

At $150 for an 8-zone unit, the B-hyve XR is an correct mark, if no longer moderately an insanely broad one. The product works smartly and the educational curve is much less steep than with competing hardware; as such, it’s positively price indispensable consideration for impartial correct about any atmosphere—in particular in bellow for you a unit that you may well perhaps perhaps mount exterior.

• This chunky indoor/exterior sprinkler controller gives loads of bells and whistles, including a built-in LED show conceal that offers dwell situation updates.

  Pros

  • Loads of scheduling alternate choices, rather easy to impress
  • Onboard indicate is handy for at-a-gaze situation updates
  • Dual-band Wi-Fi serve
  • Will likely be mounted exterior with out an accent (though no longer entirely water resistant)

  Cons

  • Wiring leads may well perhaps require some finagling to efficiently connect
  • Quite stout in size
  • Onboard hardware controls are removed from intuitive

Christopher Null is a aged know-how and exchange journalist. He contributes on a typical basis to TechHive, PCWorld, and Wired, and operates the websites Drinkhacker and Movie Racket.