Orbit B-hyve Sprinkler Timer Guide

Which B-hyve do you have?

B-hyve is Orbit’s app-connected line. The box says B-hyve on the front, and you run it from the B-hyve phone app.

B-hyve Smart Indoor timer — a small white box inside the garage with a few buttons and a light ring.
B-hyve Smart Outdoor timer (and the XR) — a weatherproof box on an outside wall, with a small screen and buttons.

If the app was never set up, or the box is on the wall but nobody knows the login, text us a photo and we will help you get into it. The box’s own buttons only cover part of this on some models (see below).

Run it by hand, once a week

This is the whole job for most customers. Monday’s email tells you how many minutes; you tap a button.

From the app:

Open the B-hyve app and pick your timer.
Tap the manual or run button (the watering-can icon on most versions).
Choose the grass zones (bed and drip zones need less, so leave them out or give them their own shorter run), enter the minutes from Monday’s email, and tap start. The timer runs the chosen zones in turn and stops by itself.

From the box, without the app: the buttons differ by model. The outdoor timer and the XR have a screen with a manual run you can set to your minutes. The small indoor timer’s manual button runs a short fixed cycle only, so it cannot follow Monday’s number; if you have that one and no app, text us a photo and we will get the app set up with you. The quick-start card inside the door shows your model’s buttons.

Skip week: when Monday’s email says skip, do nothing.

A hand run counts the same as a scheduled one. Run it only on your assigned day and inside your county’s allowed hours. Monday’s email carries the current rule.

Keep it from running on its own

Check every automatic program before adding manual lawn runs. Photograph or save the existing settings.

All zones manual: turn Smart Watering off and disable every custom program in the app.
Beds or drip still automatic: preserve their schedules and keep the controller enabled. Remove grass zones from each retained custom program; disable only programs that serve grass alone. Grass must also be excluded from Smart Watering. If your app only offers a controller-wide Smart Watering switch, first preserve the non-lawn watering in separate custom programs using their existing days and durations, then turn Smart Watering off. If you cannot identify those settings, get help before changing them.

With grass removed from all automatic watering, skip week means skipping only your manual grass run. It does not mean turning off the whole controller.

Want it to run itself? The optional schedule

If your county’s allowed hours are overnight, or you travel, a schedule beats an alarm clock. Set it once, then let Monday’s email tell you when to change the minutes.

Exclude grass from Smart Watering and from other custom programs, following the non-lawn preservation steps above.
Create one grass-only program. Keep separate bed and drip programs intact. In the app, add a program, pick only your assigned day, and set a single start time inside your county’s allowed hours.
Minutes per zone. Enter the minutes from Monday’s email for each grass zone. Leave bed and drip zones out of this grass program.
Rain in the forecast? A controller-wide rain delay pauses non-lawn watering too. Use it only when every zone should pause. If beds or drip must continue, disable only the grass program for the skip period and re-enable it when the lawn plan calls for watering.

Rain sensor: if a wired or wireless rain sensor is paired, leave it active. A sensor left bypassed all summer keeps watering through the rainy season, and that is how lawns get fungus.

Official manuals

Orbit publishes the manual and setup videos for every B-hyve model at the Orbit help center. Search by the model name on your box. The steps above are our own plain-language version; the manual is the authority on your exact buttons.

Stuck?

Text a photo of your timer to (941) 297-5749 and we will point you to the right step. Waves does not repair irrigation. If a zone will not run or a head is broken, we will refer you to an irrigation contractor we trust.