More than 8 zones? Just buy this now!
Astonishing for the price – I sincerely don’t think I could expect more for what I spent and the time I took setting it up.

I’ve been working around sprinkler systems for over 30 years off and on. While I’m much more familiar with Hunter, Rain Bird, and Irritrol systems before the “smart” device revolution, I have had extensive experience with Smart controller systems from Wyze and B-hyve.

My personal challenge was finding something that could handle 14 total zones without having to purchase two controllers and run them together and ensure their schedules don’t overlap, that sort of thing. Add to that the challenge of running my system with a pump start relay, and I felt like I didn’t have a lot of good options that we’re going to be affordable.

Not so, obviously. Hioazo offers massive versatility, functionality, and ease of use for an amazing low price for those of you who, like me, have more than six or eight zones (which seems to be the maximum for pretty much every other consumer grade product). Obviously you can go commercial and spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get this kind of basic functionality, but even then most of the time it comes with the constant specter of being harassed to purchase a subscription on a monthly or yearly basis.

All I have to say is Hioazo to the rescue!

I have tested as much as I possibly can in the roughly one week I’ve had since owning this controller, but I’ve set up schedules, run individual zones dozens of times manually at this point, and all I have to say is it’s working flawlessly.

My particular controller sits in an old well house that no longer houses a well – but is essentially a brick and mortar shed. So it’s out of the elements but is also a fair distance from my closest mesh router, and it picked up the Wi-Fi signal and has stayed connected without issue. The commands I give it through the app, which is where I fully control this process, are nearly instantaneous no matter where I’m at in the yard or world for that matter from what I can tell.

There are lots of options for water conservation as you might imagine, weather based control and so forth. I’m sure all of those things work well, I am looking at this as somebody who wants full control over getting my yard up to speed as it has not been properly irrigated in a consistent manner for over a full season.

I don’t know what others might be expecting for the incredibly low price this controller sells for, but I will tell you that you need to be at least moderately open to tech and app oddities and bear with it as it will work and works well. No subscription and no hidden surprises. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the app itself does havel some bugs but they are minor. For example, you have the ability to name or change your controller itself and each Zone individually. I’ve observed that it never actually changes immediately but usually takes five or 10 minutes and I’m guessing that could be frustrating to some people thinking all the work they just put into renaming things did not take. Be patient, give it at least a few hours before you decide whether you need to try again. While this controller is usable from the front panel, which has surprisingly extensive options and function, I personally prefer using the app on my Google Pixel Android phone for all control. Because the two talk to each other so perfectly, I’ve had no need hardly at all to use the physical controller other than getting everything wired properly.

Have I mentioned that for the price it’s almost unbelievable how well this works? I can’t imagine our good friends at Hioazo aren’t going to be charging more, soon, for their products – they are a great value. I was actually introduced to Hioazo because it was the only smart controller I could get overnight early this year when I sold a previous home and needed to replace the controller simply because I lost the power supply for the previous one. I was so impressed with it having made the decision strictly on a financial/shipping basis, that I was very pleased to find out they had controllers or at least one controller that could handle my entire yard at a different location.

Finally, the other aspect that I really love about this controller is that the power transformer is built into it. No big heavy power block to fall off the wall or accidentally bump and so forth. Just a standard plug with ground (so all three prongs).

Should something change I will be sure to update this review, but for the moment I’m a very happy homeowner looking forward to years of satisfaction with this controller. I will likely be getting or attaching a rain sensor and more as I become more familiar with and confident in my sprinkler system.