At Rachio, whose mission is to "make sustainable water use effortless and personally rewarding", saving water has always been a major source of motivation and inspiration. With their smart sprinkler controllers and Rachio Thrive lawn care products, Rachio continues to focus efforts on putting easy-to-use, tech-enabled solutions into the hands of homeowners across the United States. But Rachio also continues to push water conservation in bigger and more impactful ways, like by teaming up with water utilities to help communities build bigger collective results.
How does Rachio help communities save bigger together? They partner with water utilities to improve residents’ watering habits and gain valuable insight into improvements for outdoor water use. In the growing city of Spanish Fork, Utah, water utility managers were in need of a way to make the most of limited water infrastructure. High water usage in the early morning and late evening (when many residents were watering their yards) strained water resources and created the potential for future water pressure issues. This, combined with high winds which often scattered sprinkler water intended for plants, limited irrigation effectiveness and presented more water challenges for the expanding city.
Rachio teamed with Spanish Fork to convert households to using Rachio Smart Sprinkler Controllers. By transitioning household waterers to smart controllers and staggered watering start times across Spanish Fork, the city was able to smooth demand and reduce peak water usage. After Rachio controllers were installed, Spanish Fork saw average outdoor water savings of 17% per household – big savings for a city where saving water is a top priority!
The program's success was due in part to a commitment to bringin
g rate payers along for the journey. By keeping residents up to date on the changes, messaging how much water they were saving with their Rachio controllers, and also alerting them to ways they could continue to reduce water waste (such as watering outside of the windiest times of day to prevent water loss), Spanish Fork and Rachio created community buy-in and ensured the program was designed for success.
Rachio continues to work with water utilities across the country to realize even greater water savings while tackling complex water resource challenges. At the WaterNow Alliance Virtual Summit, Co-founder Chris Klein will join the Techsploration Panel to talk more about how Rachio is helping to transform the water management space with scaled utility programs. Join us for the discussion!