EDIT: 07/06/2020 Well, the 3rd 3 outlet Orbit Timer bit the dust this morning. Or rather, I noticed it for the first time. I'm not sure how long the water has been running on station 3. It was just continuous. There was a small pond among the trees we were trying to water towards the road. The brush hide the constant flow. I can't tell you how disgusted I am with these timers. When will ORBIT step up to the plate and realize they're manufacturing a defective product?? END OF EDIT.
These timers are easy to attach, easy to program and easy to manually control. We've been using Orbit timers for a few years now. In May of 2015, we bought 2 Orbit 3-outlet timers for the first time, model 56082 from Amazon. We bought another 3-outlet Orbit timer, as well as 2 single outlet Orbit timers locally. Five timers in all: 3 of the 3-outlet times and 2 of the 1-outlet timers. Then in May of 2017, we bought another 3-outlet timer from Amazon to replace one that had stopped working. And in May of 2018, we bought another single outlet timer from Amazon to replace one that had stopped working.
It never occurred to us to seek a replacement or refund from Orbit, because they did work for us for awhile, even watering everything on our property while we vacationed. We were impressed. And we were not aware that they had a 6 year warranty.
Last year we unhooked all of our perfectly functioning Orbit timers, removed the batteries, cleaned them, and put them in storage, like we always do. This year, we pulled them out, put in new batteries, and attempted to program them for watering. To our consternation, we discovered that none of the 3-outlet timers would program correctly, would not turn off even when we switched them to off and would not respond to manual control. An outlet might work or...it might not. It was just random what these timers would do. They're designed to run one station at a time, but the first one wouldn't turn off, but the second one would begin, so that 2 outlets were running at the same time on the same timer and they would not shut off unless we turned the water off. And one of the single timers did that same thing [not responding to the programming].
Now we couldn't trust any of them to do our watering and/or function correctly. We have a water well and the possibility of these things coming on and staying on while we're on vacation or otherwise gone for a few days runs the risk of flooding our watering areas and/or ruining our very expensive water well.
So, we decided to buy all new Orbit timers to replace all of the non-working ones. On June 22, 2020, we ordered from Amazon 3 brand-spanking new 3-port timers, model 56082, as well as 2 brand-spanking new single port timers, model 62061Z to the tune of $290. Five brand-new timers in all. They arrived on the 25th and 26th of June, 2020. On the 27th, we put new batteries in, programmed them, attached them to the water faucets, connected the water hoses to each outlet and thought we were good to go.
The next morning, on the 28th, imagine our surprise to wake up and see 2 of the brand-spanking new 3-port timers had not shut off and would not respond to turning the timers off. We had to shut the water faucets off. The other 3-port timer looked like it hadn't watered from outlet 2, so we tried doing it manually, but it wouldn't respond to a manual command. We always water in the wee hours of the morning before the sun comes up. The watering is always finished before daylight. Anyway...
So, we took the timers off the faucets, took the battery packs out, allowed the memory to clear, reinstalled the batteries, reprogrammed them and reinstalled them. We ran tests through all the cycles, setting each outlet at 2 minute intervals. They worked. Then we cycled through all outlets to see if they would respond to manual control and all seemed well, giving us hope that they were going to function correctly.
The following morning, the 29th, we woke to the same problem on 2 of the 3-outlet timers. Not one to give up easily, I ran them [my husband had already given up] through multiple tests, removing and reinserting the batteries, reprogramming and testing ad nauseam. Finally, I gave up too and decided to send these two 3-outlet timers back. UPS is scheduled to pick them up today, the 30th of June, 2020.
These were brand-new and defective right out of the box. We are so disappointed in the compromised quality of these Orbit timers. At the first inkling that these things were defection, we should have re-boxed them all and sent them all back immediately. As of now, we're returning 2 of the 3-outlet timers. And we're going to be vigilantly aware of the performance of the ones we're keeping. If there's even a hint that one functions incorrectly, it's going back immediately.
What has happened to the integrity of companies that are mass producing defective products? It's just all about the bottom line -- $$$. And there are probably multitudes of buyers unaware of Orbits 6 year warranty and just end ups trashing them. Should not companies be accountable for their defective products? I think so.
We weren't aware that these timers have a 6 year warranty or exactly what that warranty covered. Perhaps companies like Orbit count on the ignorance of its customers. Orbit needs to be on top of all these negative comments. Now we're hesitant to order replacements and we do not, as of right now, recommend them to anyone.
E. Walsh
N. Tatjana C. Versaggi
Mark L.
