Customer Reviews for Melnor Advanced 2-Zone Electronic Water Timer

I give this a 4 Star rating as we have only had the unit for a few week. We went through two Orbit products before we took a chance on this. The Orbit would go through it's battery power within days constantly losing its programming. The Melnor seems to be better built and while 2 weeks may not be a good indicator of long term viability, it has worked flawlessly. Programming is easy.

It does work as described. I had to reset it manually as described in the instructions due to be knocked around in the package. I was expecting a more specific way of setting the intervals. For instance there wasn’t a way to have 4 hr interval but no watering during the middle of the day.

used with the rain sensor probe, this unit is a great water and labor saver. i use it with soaker hoses, and the garden has never looked so good. it's very easy to use and set up. i am very happy with this unit.

This is a great find and a great buy. I use it to water my garden and the features allow he to keep everything watered without worries.

Did not work properly. Will be returning it.

After using this product for almost a year I find that this product is unreliable. It turns on by itself at unscheduled times and will not turn off unless you manually shut it off. This appears to happen the most if you use the manual to water the plants but after they are done watering, you do not reset the time back to zero. This happened at least 15 times and my trees got over-watered and my avocado tree developed root rot and died.

This was just what I needed to replace an older one that I couldn't program. Easy to use, read and install.

Did not meet expectations at all. I bought this as interim fix while we were upgrading our irrigation systems. Initially this worked great and we used for two drip zones. But within 4 months in failed. The display works though the viewing angle is no longer good (have to look up at it versus straight on). Main issue is that all buttons have stopped working. I bought one of these in the hope of replacing my older timer that had failed. There is no reset, the manufacturer has no response and it is a waste of $45 if it is not usable for other then a nonsettable digital watch. Extremely disappointed in the timer and the fact that I cannot return it at this point to HD.

Screen died after 5 months. Worked great until that. I see other reviews with same issue, maybe that's why HD isn't carrying in stores anymore. I'd rather it had died right away so I could return it more easily.

Patches product for 3 months no problems so far so good I would recommend it to anyone who needs a timer for the water hose

Used this product for 4 months on the garden beds for drip irrigation. Hooked up the other zone to the grass sprinklers for 2 months. It is a great bang for your buck water timer ~$45 compared to other 2 zone electronic ones as compared on HD, Lowes, Amazon, Sears. Timer works great as I set different watering times and duration for the grass and garden beds. Display is clear and easy to read even when the sun directly shines on it. Timer sits in the sun for around 6 hours a day and still works great. Telling time is clear and does not drift slower or faster as any time. Set up is pretty easy once you familiarize yourself for a good 10 mins with the controls. Garden beds are flourishing and so is the grass. Battery life is still at 100% so either the timer uses very little battery juice or the display is reading wrong, but the timer is working great so far so I would say it uses little juice. I save a lot of time not going outside and manually watering the plants which pays for itself over and over.

I have them for about 1 month and they work great,no issue at all

bought one…didn't display at all. returned for a second, which worked for 2 days before the timer went garbled. can NOT recommend this product….even if they have greatly reduced the price! back to orbit.

excellent directions on setting up...high quality and a bargain price...

This Melnor is the second two-zone timer that I have purchased this year. MUCH better experience than the first one I tried (and returned,) from Orbit. That particular model (58910) was a big disappointment and simply didn't function properly. The Melnor is well-made, straightforward to program, and works flawlessly.

I will have to return this product. Works well but the timer Numbers faded,within 1 month of usage.I will not recommend this product until the company resolves this issue.

This timer was more difficult to set than others that I have had. Also, after setting the timing, and then checking it, it only worked one time on one of the zones. The second time, it appeared to be stuck in the open position and the water just flowed through. I returned this product.

This appears to be the new version of the known sprinkler timer. It is more expensive than the earlier 4-zone or 2-zone models but way less intuitive or easy to operate. The previous design used the square screen with all functions shown at once and the 4-zone version also has the manual on/off handle. This new design has the following problems: - obviously, you don't see everything on the same screen when setting up or reviewing later - manual on/off is digital and requires unintuitive "press right for manual" and also requires you to turn off rain delay to use it. In addition, changing zone for manual somehow seems easy to miss - since this is the timer intended for hoses, it may often be the case that people want to move the sprinkler and the handle for manual on/off would be extremely useful, so there would be no need for lengthy "programming" - turning off rain delay, setting manual, changing zone, entering time for manual, finally press OK... Suffice to say that I didn't need the instructions to program and use manual functions of the old timer with the square screen, and I had to go back to the instruction both times I tried to program and use the manual - but manual mode was not explained well in the instructions. There seems to be one major new feature that could be extremely useful for some people - that is the ability to set day of the week for watering - a must if you have water use restrictions based on days in your town. I don't so it does not matter to me. I returned it and I cannot recommend it overall.

The LCD screen went out before the timer even turn on the sprinklers (1 day). I contacted melnor, so hopefully they can provide some answers, otherwise I will be bringing this back.

I bought one of these in the hope of replacing my older timer that had failed. Within a week the display got garbled and I couldn't see the programming or set anything. In the hope that this was a defective unit I purchased another one. This time the display went out within a day. Note that this is in bay area summer, so it's not like it's terribly harsh. Very disappointed with the product since it seemed well built and served all my needs apart from this glaring durability issue. I will unfortunately be returning my second one as well and look somewhere else for a better built timer that can withstand a mild summer. Honestly I am surprised that the other reviews are as good as they are.

Updated version of this device working just fine so far !!!! Easy to program as well as installed it as part of a Low Volume operating system (25 # ) Spray / Drip irrigation system for Planting Beds in two (2) separated yard areas.

I like this Melnor water time better than the previous one I had. Programming it is pretty simple and doesn't take long. It's also easy to toggle through the settings to make changes, or set the rain delay. It's also easy to turn it on for non-programmed watering. Everyone with a garden should have one. You could even hook this up to a rain barrel system and allow it to do the watering for you. I have mine connected to my drip irrigation system, it's really one thing less for me to do or worry about. I have it some on in the morning for a good soaking before the sun gets hot, and if my plants look dry later in the day I sometimes turn it on again for 20 minutes. Longevity wise, I can say my last Melnor lasted about 2 years until is stopped turing off, I have a lot of sediment in my water, so perhaps it got clogged. Also, the battery life lasts a long time as well. I think I only changed the batteries twice in 2 years.

I spent a significant amount of time last year watering my front yard with the hose. Not anymore with this product. I set up a hose and sprinkler from the outdoor faucet so the sprinkler now goes off at intervals during the day. The timer is durable, has a lot of great features (like battery life rating, rain settings and separate intervals) not to mention it works like a charm. I am extremely happy with this purchase. Just one note, when setting the zones make sure if you are only using one to set the second zone to zero seconds so it will not open the valve. Otherwise, you will have a lot of unnecessary water shooting out out of the second hose. Learned that one the hard way.

I love the fact that this water timer can control 2 areas and water them as programmed. I have this set up for both my front yard and also for my garden bed where I'm growing some veggies. Installation was straightforward and programming was simple as per instructions. Just set and go. No more worrying about under or over watering. Program for when you're away on vacation. Great product!

After reseeding areas of my neglected lawn I needed a way to keep the new seed damp thru the day.This handy device is doing the job and has saved me many trips outside.I set up 2 sprinklers for the large area I reseeded and ran 2 hoses with the timer set to water for 10 minutes multiple times a day. So far has worked flawlessly. Very easy to set up and easy to program with intuitive controls. Feels solid and well made. A set and forget product and huge time saver for me.

This is the second water timer I've owned in the last 2 years. There are definite improvements to this model. However, it is still incredibly complicated to program, in some cases the instructions don't even help. Once you figure out how to program it, this timer is actually decent, the only thing we really need now is the water sensor to turn it off when it rains!

This water timer works well for me. The design is attractive, and I didn't need pliers on the big rugged nut to the hose bib. It tightens easily by hand. It's easy to program (read the directions - it's not intuitive). The only problems I had with it were due to NOT reading the directions! First, it didn't like my Eneloop rechargable batteries - it wants alkalines (just like the directions say). Programming is straightforward - my problem was trying to do it like my former water timer. I hooked up my hose and sprinkler, then wanted to turn it on manually so I could adjust the spray pattern. Back to the directions, found the instructions for Manual Watering. Finally got the timer to give me the icon that indicated it was ON, but nothing was coming out of my sprinkler? Huh? Oh yeah - turn on the faucet! The instructions say this timer will work with an automatic rain delay sensor, but didn't give the model number. The folks at Melnor responded quickly to my query and provided #15339 as the proper sensor - I look forward to trying it with this timer.

I have looked for a timer like this for a long time. Has one inlet but has two separate outlets which can be programmed to water at different times. We water a drip irrigation garden area and we also water a container garden (Earth Box) area. Both require different watering times and schedules. Before this timer I had to put a four way splitter on the hose bib and support it because of the weight. Now I put a simple two way splitter on the hose bib. One outlet of the splitter for this timer and another outlet of the splitter for my garden hose! I learned this works with the Hydrologic Automatic Rain Delay. I will purchase the delay and when it rains I won't have to run outside shutting off the timer! This is an excellent option! Easy to set up and use. Took me all of five minutes to set up my watering schedules! This is incredibly easy! Runs up to 24 cycles per day. Comes with a 7 year warranty!

Over the past six years I've gone through approximately seven different Timers. The sun in Texas tends to make the plastic brittle and leaks start occurring. Or the circuits fail and things stop working. I had one that failed open! What a nice feature. So each spring I look for new hose timers. Finding the melnor option I was interested to see what could happen. First the appearance is nice. Easy to read. Sadly it is a plastic, so I don't have high hopes of it lasting more than a season or two. Upon getting the batteries in, you setup the date and time and then can configure the timer. This is the rub, it's needlessly complicated to configure the timing. Like if you can only water on a Saturday you set it to water every 24 hours, then select the day. Why not just choose the days? The system knows AM/PM and day of the week... You set it up not 6 button presses ago. I do like the manual function and off or rain delay. The LCD can be a little washed out in the sun. Hopefully I can update in a few mons how the timer is holding up against the brutal Texas sun.

Had high hopes for the timer, but after setting up the drip system and hooking up the timer, it failed before it was even used. The dial would not work unless you pushed down on the face. Made it impossible to program.