Rain Bird - WR2-RFC - Wireless Rain/Freeze Sensor Complete Kit

I purchased a combo pack of this item along with the Rain Bird ESP-TM2 12 Station WiFi Ready Indoor/Outdoor Controller | TM2-12 and the Wi-Fi snap in to control the our 20 year old Rain Bird control panel. I left a review on the controller and it is a huge improvement over our original Rain Bird controller which was starting to wear out. The moving parts had started to break off and the controller had some issues with a couple of the zones. They worked most of the time, but occasionally they would not work for a couple of days we’re allowed to water. Here in Texas , we are on water restrictions almost every year now.This is a great unit for turning off the water if it’s raining outside. The design is far better than our original add-on model on our 20 year old Rain Bird controller. The whole system, except the pipes were made by Rain Bird. The witless rain sensor was another brand and it didn’t last for two seasons. The design was terrible as it took a C cell battery and the battery was installed through the top of the sensor. I tried to change it and the sensor was full of water. Basically we had to go into the garage and manually turn the system off. After 3 years , the sun had baked the whole sensor and it just fell off the molding strip at the roof line near the area where the controller is located. This model is plastic as well,but seems like it is thicker than the original one. It can be attached to a gutter with the mounting hardware or lower down to make the much better battery design easier to change out. The outside unit has a coin type battery that loads on the bottom, so I don’t think it will fill up. I mounted ours on the backside of the controller and it is in a hidden location from sight and it will not get baked by the Texas sun. Basically the indoor control panel is on the wall inside with the outdoor sensor mounted right behind the whole system. The indoor module was mounted close to the new controller and it has a way better method of letting you know when the outside sensor gets low on power. So far it has worked great and it still shows that the rain sensor battery is fully charged. This was actually a really good deal for the three devices, but we have a smart home controller and outdoor camera units that we can see if it’s raining and turn the system off with an App. We water our yard starting around midnight and into the morning. So, I still like having this sensor installed as if we are going away for a few days, it will not run if it’s raining. I have the inside module that connects to the main controller and I can see if the battery is getting low or should be replaced. The old model was an afterthought and the battery was up really high , so it got neglected. The inside was screwed onto the box and the indicator was a red and green light. So it would be green and turn red in just a minute or two. You basically didn’t know the battery was going dead until it was completely dead.Well made sensor and works very well with the Controller we purchased. The sensor is not mounted up too high that you need a ladder to change and it doesn’t get nearly as much sun as the old model. Highly recommended for any of the compatible models and the design is much better than any other sensor we have owned.

Excellent Rainbird rain sensor. Delivered just as described in the description. Very happy with my purchase.

The hail storm destroyed my old Hunter Wireless Rain sensor, and insurance said to go ahead and replace it. Since I installed the Hunter, I said I'd install the replacement.I did spend a couple dollars (I think it was $5 more?) and upgraded to the "freeze" model, which this one is. I started by wiring in the receiver, which used the exact same four wires and terminals as my previous Hunter model (I installed this into a Hunter Pro-C). It took about ten minutes. According to the instructions, the next step is pairing the sensor with the receiver, which consists of installing a replaceable battery in the sensor (the Hunter's battery is not replaceable). I then took the sensor to my backyard and mounted it on the side of my deck. That was it.A couple things I really like about this sensor:1. It has an LCD display at the receiver where you can select rain amounts to turn off the system, as well as freeze points. On the Hunter, this was done at the actual sensor, which would be difficult if it was mounted up high. Additionally, the Rainbird has you select by fractions of an inch of rain, the Hunter is just a little door you open wider. Temperature is set by selecting from one of three temps. I used all the recommended defaults from Rainbird.2. The Rainbird also has a battery level display and wireless signal strength display on the LCD.3. I also found I can easily see how much it rained by looking at the display (yippee - no need for another rain gauge!)One negative comment, the included mount is supposed to be able to snap on a gutter or screw into a wall. I chose wall because I was unable to snap it to my gutters, they had a different lip than the Rainbird takes. I have pretty cookie cutter gutters, so not sure why this is an issue. I am getting new gutters soon (from the hail damage) so I'll report back if it works on the new ones.

Replaced an existing identical sensor that was 5 years old. Ordered and installed the new one. The documentation took a few reads to understand. But when all was said and done the new replacement works well and ideally good for another 5 years.

Never had one of these before, but it was easy to install on the gutter, had to use my own screw to attached as my gutter was not set up for the bracket. The wires to connect the receiving unit were fairly easy to install, just review the wiring figure, as I also set mine up wrong until I read the instructions a few times while looking at the units.

I've had an irrigation system for 18 years and only just purchased this detector a month ago. I live in the Seattle area where rain is prevalent in the fall and spring and this would have saved me a lot of unneeded watering from forgetting to put my Rainbird watering controller on rain delay. It works great. I mounted it to our yard's perimeter fence, so it's free of obstructions (the house, trees, etc). It detects even our "skinny rain." If the battery really last the manual's stated 4 years it'd be perfect even for people who mounted it to hard-to-reach gutters. The only downside was there weren't instructions on how to connect it to my controller (SST-900i), so I ended up using two three-way solderless connectors. (photo)