Daily/Seasonal Adjustments

Are the adjustments to my actual watering times made based on the local weather patterns for this day or week, or are they only made for preset “seasonal adjustments?”

For example, it has been unseasonably cool here in east Tennessee (37919) for the past few weeks, yet I got a notice a few days ago that my watering times were being increased due to a seasonal adjustment. While that would be perfectly appropriate during a normal late-July period, it didn’t really match our actual weather with some near-record lows recently, so I was confused about how that process works.

@lc1, we’re currently using NOAA 30-year monthly average weather data, indexed for each weather reporting station in the US, for our Water Budgeting. It seems to work pretty well for most people, but there are definitely some folks like you that are having unusual summers, so I’m currently working on integrating real-time weather into Weather Budgeting and schedule generation. You can expect to see an announcement in a few weeks.

Thanks, that would be great.

Just so I’m clear, for now at least, the actual current local weather only determines whether it’s going to water or not (all or nothing), while the adjustments to watering durations are actually made based on preset historical data for a region’s typical weather, correct?

Also, integrating real-time weather in a way that allows for an automatic change in interval between watering days (move the schedule up by a day or back by a day automatically when appropriate) would obviously be extremely helpful as well, and would more closely be approaching a truly smart, hands-off system. I’m hopeful that can be integrated in the near future.

@lc1‌ Yes, that is is correct. Weather intelligence (i.e. rain delay) is using current local weather. Very soon we will be switching automatic schedule creation and water budgeting (seasonal adjustment) to current local weather. Our initial plan was using that approach but our weather data was too volatile. We are switching weather providers and this new data will allow us to more accurately create/adjust schedules.

Yes, switching interval(s) is definitely in our product backlog. Great recommendation.

Thanks again for the feedback and thoughtfulness.

Ooooh, my first seasonal adjustment!

Unfortunately for a schedule that’s disabled. Eagerly awaiting the changes for the active schedule!

@coslor @franz - i do not agree that using any weather history for forecasting what is going to happen today, tomorrow or 10 days from now when determining irrigation needs. The reasons I don’t agree are, a) we are going through a cycle of climate change. What is happening today is not likely what has happened in the past, b) many of us either live in micro-climates, affected by geography or, sometimes mother nature doesn’t do exactly what forecasters think she’s going to do.

I have reported before that I’ve seen my schedule being skipped because your source of weather has overstated what is going to occur or missed it altogether. This has happened to me again this weekend in a dramatic way, causing me to manually water my turf.

To be honest, there certainly are opportunities to determine when and how much to water. Many of those capabilities exist today without cloud services, such as through Hunter systems and their sensors. I’ve owned one for the last 15 years. They aren’t perfect but they make decisions on what happened at my location in the recent 24 hours or is currently happening and adjusts accordingly. Cloud services (such as the Iro) should offer us a more granular approach to ‘now casting’. Right now, it has taken me back several years and forcing me to spend more time managing my irrigation on a daily basis. This is exactly what I don’t want to do.

The biggest benefit I’m enjoying from this system at the moment is the iOS based remote control, something that was costly to achieve with the Hunter system. I am hopeful that Rachio’s roadmap will get us to a more intelligent, more dynamic, more localized management capability in the near future.