Hunter BTT Single-Zone Tap Timer

I bought two of these Hunter Tap Timers after carefully reading reviews and comparing them to competitor products. In almost all Tap Timers, failures eventually occur due to water infiltration into the electronics, or because of grit getting into the ball valve or solenoid. The Hunter BTT addresses these issues by removing the display and setup buttons typically found on competitor products, and moving everything to software on a smart phone, thereby keeping the main Tap Timer well-sealed. I did add a finer mesh screen at the inlet, since our local water has some sand issues, and I orient the device so the battery compartment is generally on the bottom (sheltered from rain and sprinkler water).Bluetooth is required, and it's an older Bluetooth, so limited to a working range of about 20 feet, but for most residential applications, that's fine. I'm able to stand at my kitchen sink, look out at the yard, and control my hose-driven sprinklers.The features in software include BTT battery level, signal strength, manual control override, and very precise "Run" (or "On") and "Soak" (or "Off") within a watering window, and this is great because it can help reduce run-off and over-watering.I set mine to have a daily primary window between 9 PM and 9:30 PM, running 3 days a week, but within that daily window it cycles 5 minutes "Run" and 5 minutes "Soak" for a total of 15 minutes of water. I drive each tap at about 60 PSI (with in-line flow regulators like those used for RV hookups), which is roughly 2.2 GPM based on garden hoses. Heading into fire season in California, I'm keeping the most critical trees and plantings alive on 429 gallons of water per month, or about 14 gallons per day per timer. (I have two timers, so about 29 gallons per day total. Math! Lol!) Prior to setting up the Hunter BTTs, we were averaging 90 gallons per day of total water use during the worst of the summer months. Using these schedules, we have reduced water use by 66% (two thirds!), and that helps everyone during the drought.One thing of note: The latest iOS (14.6) doesn't play well with the Hunter BTT app; the app tends to spontaneously abort and refuse to reconnect successfully. I'm hoping Hunter is updating the app soon, but in the meantime, I keep my old smartphone handy (iOS 12.5.3) for talking to old software in our house, and that works fine.

Works as advertised. I'm not really into home automation and remote control, but I tried these out after being let down last year by three orbitz controllers that crapped out. This thing is simple to operate and its given me no problems. It's nice that I can adjust settings from inside. It is true that the programming range is short. To me that's a small inconvenience. So many of these small in-line timers develop faulty circuitry and just quit working.

Most importantly, these are easy to set up and program, or adjust the program, which was my main purpose in buying them. The Bluetooth range is very small, however - to use them from inside the house, I need to be just on the other side of the wall from them. Even so, I find this a useful product, though a WiFi version that could be controlled/monitored remotely would be ideal. I bought two of these in separate orders from Route 70 supply. Both arrived quickly and in secure, original packaging. I’ve been using the first for about a month now.

Easy to program/operate. Works in all kinds of scandinavian summer weather.

Never works. Junk!

Very easy. Been using for clients for 2 years. Purchased this for my blueberries. Great feature is the rain delay. I can turn it off for the day from my couch. And program it. Because it’s Bluetooth. Anyone complaining it isn’t WiFi enabled might want to evaluate their technical knowledge.

I needed a product that I could use to water my grass and garden while I was away from home on a trip. This has a schedule setting but mine doesn't want to stay connected. You have to be so close for the bluetooth to pick up that you could have just turbed it on yourself. I do like the timer but while I was away there were days I needed to turn it off and couldn't use my phone to deactivate it because it is bluetooth alone.

With this device attached to my hose bibb, the water flow directly out of the device (without a hose attached) is 1.2 gpm, while the flow out of the same bibb (without the device attached) is 2.9 gpm. With a flex hose attached to the device, the flow is further reduced down to a mere 0.86 gpm. And if I pull the hose up about 6 ft to water flowers on the deck, the flow is only 0.68 gpm, which is like 23% of what is available from my hose bibb. My water pressure is 60 psi.The device Bluetooth range is about 30 ft in open air, but it gets reduced down to about 10 ft when either a wall or a layer of a composite deck is in the way.The only positive is the app for this device does not require one to create any online accounts.Realistically, this low cost device is likely only suitable for controlling drip irrigation which does not require any real water flow.