Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsMediocre ... Glad I stumbled upon Melnor
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 21, 2020
I had earlier bought Orbit 3 zone timer when this popped up on Amazon in similar products list. Checked the rating and reviews and decided to order one just to compare. I ended up keeping the Menor 4 zone time and return the Orbit time. Here are the reason that made Melnor the clear winner over Orbit.
1. Compact - Melnor 4 zone is a tad smaller than Orbit 3 zone.
2. Hardware - The look and feel of Melnor is better than Orbit. Also the internal mechanism on Menor is quieter than that of Orbit.
3. Zones - Melnor has 4 zones whereas Orbit has 3 zones.
4. Scheduling - Orbit allows scheduling from every 6 hrs to once every 7 days (or once a week) for each zone. Melnor allows you to either select the schedule same as Orbit, or select days of the week when you want the sprinklers/irrigation on each zone to run.
5. Scheduling Plus - One big winner for Melnor is that within each zone, not only can you select the days it should run, but also set 4 different cycles and durations within each zone for the days you selected.
6. Maximum Rain delay duration - Orbit goes up to 72 hours only. Melnor goes upto 7 days.
7. Finally the Price - Melnor 4 zone timer, in spite of packing in all the above extras is cheaper than Orbit 3 zone timer (or at least it was cheaper when I had ordered them).
To sum it up, even if you need just 3 zone timer, I would suggest to go for Melnor and have that extra zone just in case you add something in the future, since there is no other reason you would want to buy the Orbit.
