Melnor RainCloud 4+

The interphase is quite 3rd grade on this app. It’s also not very responsive. I’ve also come across different types of configurations that I’d like to use to water my plants but the app is too unsophisticated to do what I’d like. Also, Melnor really just doesn’t care about your opinions or suggestions. I took about an hour of my time to write to them, suggesting many ways that they can improve the app. Basically I was giving them good, free feedback from a consumer that has extensive experience, professional and personal, with irrigation systems. I sent the email twice and they not even once acknowledged or thanked me for the effort. Obviously they changed NOTHING since the app hasn’t been updated in over 11 months now. Not likely they will update it either considering everything. I suppose they are stuck on mediocrity with no real care to change.

In our world of connected everything, Melnor has connected us to our hoses. Their customer service has been top notch for me. This is my second season with the setup that I took down for winter. I plugged it in, added fresh batteries and everything started up with last years settings stored remotely by Melnor. App is a basic design, a bit confusing to configure, odd to look at and control with its different sized fonts and oddly sized buttons. App is overdue for a revision, should support alerts, control water pressure by partially opening the valve, show water usage... but, it is what it is. It turns on your hose, so you don’t have to :) Valves seem to connect up to 100ft of control unit, but a miss for me is that it only controls 2 valve units (I bought three) and I wonder how long the plastic housing will last (but I guess I have an extra valve lol). Other note: Valve units use 4 AA’s that you’ll change every 3-4 months. Happy watering and green gardens to all!

I want this app to work much better than it does. I can deal with the 1997 level of design and interface, but when the timer function of your app (THE PART THAT IS 99% OF THE FUNCTIONALITY OF YOUR APP) is unreliable, you’ve got issues. Dive into it, figure out what big causes the timer to randomly go from 28 (or 26 or 15 or 7, etc) to zero and just turn off without notice or explanation. I honestly don’t care what the app looks like as long as it works well, and right now it doesn’t.