Kingfisher Electronic Water Timer

Only bought this very recently, just before we went on holiday. I didn't wish to spend a lot of money, because I only wanted it for a couple of pots and ordinarily I never use a timer. I set it up on a ordinary hose without an irrigation hose system just to water 2 pots of hydrangeas. I'm really impressed. It's only a very simple timer, but very easy to use. Because it doesn't have a digital clock, you have to do initial set up at a time you wish the hose to come on. I set it up at 6pm and set the dials for every 12 hours and for 5 minutes. So, from the time of set up, the timer clicks on at 6pm and 6am (every 12 hours, ie. twice each day) for 5 mins. Simple!In fact, with such hot weather recently, and my back garden being a sun trap, I've left the timer on! (No coming out to thirsty hydrangeas!) Once I've redesigned my garden, I'll put in a proper irrigation system and set it to that too!It's also quite varied in its timings. You can set it run for longer periods with varying increments (up to 120 minutes if I recall correctly) and set it to come on hourly, several times throughout the day, up to every 72 hours or even just weekly!I spent £12.49 and it's been well worth the money. I confess, it was significantly cheaper than some other brands I saw and I was worried that it wouldn't work properly, fall off the tap etc. etc. But I've been very pleasantly surprised and pleased with its performance and simplicity.It's only been working for just over a month now, so I can't comment on battery life or its long-term durability, but everything else is very good and I wouldn't hesitate in recommending it to anyone.

Read the instructions before you try to get this going. After that it's easy. Note batteries (2x AAA) are NOT included.The rubber tap connector, despite being tightened as much as possible, eventually blew off the tap, so I discarded it and used the screw thread instead. To my surprise there are no leaks or drips at all when off or when functioning, which is good.The unit is easy to set up and fairly idiot-proof. Apart from a short whirr when the timer switches the water on, the unit is silent when operating, so once you've set it. make sure it's actually on by going out and checking the nozzles.Two slight drawbacks. First, whatever interval you set it to, it won't come on until the interval has passed. In other words, if you set it for 24 hours, nothing will happen until the same time tomorrow. Second, there's no way to over-ride the timer to switch the water on to test the spray heads are working as intended.But it's well priced so pretty good overall.

Sencond one of these I've had. First one worked great for years untill i broke it. Set to water my garden for 15 minutes every 12 hours. Qorks exactly as j expect it to

Works well

I must caveat this that the following is based on my experience of the 1 item I received. It is possible I have a dodgy one.Still early days. I installed this 4 days ago and so far it seems hit and miss. So far, more miss than hit.Let me explain:The instructions, although relatively easy to follow are rather high level and vague as to exactly how the timer works when setting up other than stating that you have to start it at the time you want it to come on. OK, got that.First of all, it seems rather temperamental as to whether it actually wants to do anything or not. Installing the batteries gets the system opened up and yo can hear a shirt whirling sound. Water comes out the pipe for about 30 seconds, then it shuts down. OK, so batteries are fine. The light winks on and off, seems random as to how often. No indication on instructions as to the meaning of different frequencies.Send: Turning the duration to "Open" from fist putting in batteries, sometimes opens the valve, sometimes doesn't, again seems pure lottery. More often than not, nothing happens at all.Thirdly: Setting up, as per instructions the timer and duration, again, sorry, to harp on, but is another lottery. SO far, it's worked once on the timer, whilst i was testing. However, when I then changed the frequency, it didn't register at all and stopped working completely. The only way to get anything to happen was to remove batteries and start again. Again, not always fool proof.Lastly The last attempt has failed to get the timer to work. Although the thing make all the right noises on battery removal/insertion and the test worked, once I set the timer up to water every 6 hours for 3 minutes, nothing happened at all.I've now reset it again and will see what happens.And the instructions state that once you've set it up to start with, you can just change it and it'll be fine. No you can't. It takes no notice and stops working completely. Only way is to remove batteries, reinstall them and pray.All in all, a lousy product. It was cheap, which is the only thing going for it, but I still expect it to at least work.I shall give it one more week and if it still isn't playing, I shall ditch it and get a Hozelock instead.My opinion: Buy something else. Spend a bit more for a product that actually does what it says on the tin.Update 2 May 2016. Had this going for a while now and it's still not good. Have figured out by reading all the feedback that if the lights flash quickly it means the thing isn't working. Noting in the instructions about that. Thanks to the poster for that info. I can now get the unit to work for about 2 days max before the lights start flashing fast again, then have to take batteries out and reinsert before it'll work again.Not so critical at the moment as have only transplanted chili plants which are quite small so need very little water, but once summer comes and the plant are fully grown, bit of a problem. Am definitely upgrading to a decent timer This one will go in the bin of bad puchases forever more.