The theme for the next release is more customer control and information.
Our next release (1.5) we are incorporating the following features:
*Push notifications to iOS and Android
*Allowing changing sensitivity for rain prediction threshold on weather intelligence (rain delay). Currently it is .25 inches. We will allow for .125,.25,.5,.75, and 1 inch of rain threshold
*Start-on date for schedule intervals
*One-click watering time start in case you want to run a schedule immediately
*Manually running multiple zones with different watering durations
*Weather intelligence emails will have a URL that will allow a schedule to be run immediately.
Hopefully we will wrap up mobile development soon and submit the app for review and release.
Let us know if you have any questions or feedback.
Really looking forward to this. Here in SLC, .25 is really next to nothing, and rain is so scattered across the valley that it doesn’t fall over the entire area of the city and its suburbs. Setting a 1" threshold guarantees that the cycles will run unless we get a really good dump from mother nature.
Is there any way that the amount of watering time can be adjusted dynamically based on the amount of rain received or not received? That way it’d water less if it rained X amount and water more if it rained Y amount?
I’d like to see this as well. Also, an option to disregard the rain prediction entirely, not just adjust the threshold. My weather forecasts have been completely unreliable. I’d also like to see daily rainfall (and maybe daily rainfall predictions) logged in the history.
We are releasing some features that will help with when rain delay hits the precipitation threshold, schedule is skipped, but ultimately the consumer determines the schedule should not have been skipped.
*Rain delay emails will have a URL to run the schedule ‘now’ (in case you didn’t want it skipped)
*One click schedule run from the mobile app to start a full watering schedule at any time.
*Push notifications to mobile apps with schedule skip information which should help when emails are not viewed.
*We are also looking into more accurate weather forecasting.
@jeremyshultz and @bgd I agree there needs to be another level of sophistication. We wanted to start simple (rain delay sensitivity) and then take another holistic look at rain delay in general (adjusting schedules, reviewing overall precipitation rates, etc.).
We will continue to refine/enhance this process so hopefully it is getting more intelligent and applicable across all of our connected devices.
Would you at least consider adding the rainfall data I asked for to the history? Seems simple enough, and I think it would be useful for both you (Rachio) and us (Iro owners).
To be honest, after a couple of weeks with my Rachio I’m frustrated. I’ve been out of town for the past five days, and on four the the last five days I’ve received e-mails saying my water schedules will be skipped because of forecast rain. When I check Accuweather’s history of rain for my town, there has been absolutely no rain in the last four days. (http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/louisville-co/80027/july-weather/35020_pc?monyr=7/1/2014&view=table). Knowing this, I thought I’d run a cycle manually. I hoped to run a cycle like on my old electronic controller where I could tell it to run all circuits for the time programmed for each cycle. Instead, my only choice was go run all circuits for the same amount of time, which is ridiculous since my drip circuits run about two minutes whereas my turf circuits run 25 minutes. Or, I could sit down and spend the next three hours or more running each of the 12 circuits individually.
You must give us more control over manual watering, and you must look at historical rainfall, not forecast, in order to properly water. I am very frustrating…I’m afraid I’ve wasted $300 on this toy!
I will add to my last comment…underwatering turf isn’t a big concern; it’ll survive. But, my vegetable garden must be watered properly to avoid problems like blossom end rot on tomatoes, or herbs withering in the sun.
@bgd When we do not skip a schedule, we do create a history event that shows why we didn’t skip with the rainfall prediction. This event shows up in your history. What other data were you looking for? Thanks!
@JimAskew The next release coming soon will have the ability to one click start schedules OR manually select multiple zones with different watering durations. I believe these features will solve the issues you have noted. Let us know if there is something else you were thinking. Thanks!
Each day’s actual rainfall. Whether you water, skip, or do nothing. Predicted rainfall would be nice as well, if/when you look at it. This would help me to see if your view of my weather has any connection to reality.
If too much stuff is added you’ll need to also add a filter on data types for people to add one or more data types and then save that so each time they visit they don’t need to add they filter again.
@jeremyshultz Agreed, we do have the ability to filter on events, we were going to wait until it made sense to implement it in the mobile application. Thanks for the feedback!
@franz I’ve found noaa.gov to be the most accurate. Accuweather, Weather.com, WUND, they often get it wrong. Parsing through government text files can be a pain I’m sure, but it’ll pay off if you incorporate their data instead of data that’s been modified by a third party.
@franz - one of the other home automation products that I use (Universal Device’s ISY), just moved their weather data provider to http://www.hamweather.com . Have you explored them? This was due to cost and content as compared to their previous provider.
FYI, their use of the data is to allow their home automation product to manage compatible irrigation systems by giving the owner the ability to use weather [data] variables in determining how to control their irrigation system.
I do question the use of any of the weather sources to determine whether or not I need to irrigate in my ‘micro climate’. What I mean is, I watch radar often. The particular area we are in is in a bit of a valley. We often watch the 60-80% rain chances move around us to the north and south, delivering less rain as expected and some times none. I think the future is in soil probes and rain sensors to determine how much to water and when not to. Weather forecasting seems to be more of a crap shoot more than ever, with the impact of climate change, etc. The storms we’ve had here in the NE have been unprecedented this last week. Some areas got 4" of rain, some (me) got .73" where we were forecasted for 2"-4".
