Orbit B-hyve Smart Hose Watering Timer

Good irrigation system - needs strong wi-fi – I’ve been using my B-Hyve faucet timer and hub system for a few years now and most of the time it’s very, very good, but the wi-fi connection can be problematic. When the system is operational it works very well. I like being able to control my irrigation system remotely. I’ve discovered some limitations the hard way. Here are some of my learnings…

Always use good quality batteries and always replace them in all devices at the same time (I do so at the start of each growing season). It’s tempting to use cheap batteries but, trust me, it’s not worth the hassles. The devices talk to each other and relay the signals to devices further away from the hub - so low battery in one device can cause connection issues in other devices.

Make sure you have good wi-fi bandwidth. I recently added a couple of smart devices to my home network and found this caused issues with my b-hyve. The Orbit Assist App helped me identify the problem with my wi-fi bandwidth. I found turning off wi-fi on my smart TV when not streaming content saved enough bandwidth to get the b-hyve working again. I’ll have to discuss a bandwidth upgrade with my ISP.

The App itself has many useful features (I’m not using all the capabilities of the App). Smart watering is great, but all the notification from all my devices (currently 8) gets a bit much. Maybe there is a way to group devices together so I only get one notification per group rather than the same notification from all devices? I should investigate that!

I’d like a new feature under manual watering - that would allow me to queue several devices eg “turn on device 1 for 10 minutes then turn on device 3 for 15 minutes then turn on device 6 for 5 minutes” rather than having to set each device to run individually.

I haven’t explored what similar devices from other brands offer but, for now, the b-hyve suits my needs.

March 2026 update… Orbit listened to my feedback (ok, others may have suggested the improvement too). The latest firmware update allows you to queue manual watering, exactly as I’d hoped. It also allows you to save that watering regime so you can use it again later. These improvements will save me a lot of time! Well done Orbit.