@jziedins Note that the “eating your own dog food” thread is posted in the Flexible Daily schedule part of the forum. The Flexible Daily schedule is specifically intended for those that want to dive in, like the professionals and hobbyists that you mentioned. They don’t mind and even enjoy the process of learning the details, and have the time for it. The simplified operation that you suggest is provided by some of the other schedules that are provided, such as the Fixed Interval & Fixed Days. Even the Flexible Monthly requires less in depth knowledge.
I see how your suggestion of simplifying the Flexible Daily schedule by the added sliders would conceptually make it easier for someone not desiring to dive into the details, but I fear that the simplification would actually create more issues than leaving it as is. First, it would give a false sense of having things ‘dialed in’. A user might set it and forget it, say in the spring in mild 65 degree temps and a fair amount of rain, based on data that is not grounded in the foundation of the algorithm. Later as climate conditions change the algorithm makes adjustments, but it might be doing so assuming roots that are 10" deep when yours are really 4" deep, or it based on clay soil that retains more water than sandy loam. Temps increase to the 100s and now things aren’t getting watered as frequently as they would be if you had set the right soil type and root depth in the spring, instead of making the slider adjustment. You go on vacation and come back to an unhappy situation of wilted vegetation and a brown lawn.
Flex Daily is powerful, but needs some investment of time. If you don’t have that time the other schedules will work just fine, and are a great improvement from a dumb controller! I still remember how happy I was to toss my Hunter box and now have even my Fixed Schedules that I could manage from my PC or phone, and turn on zones in the back yard without having to run to the front of the house to turn knobs for A, B, C and 1, 2, 3, 4, not even being sure of the combination that I needed. Although I started with Fixed Interval for a couple of months I moved to Fixed Monthly as I had time. When I was comfortable there but wanted more, and was willing to put in the extra time and research, I moved to Flex Daily.
Having said all of this, as you said the water duration adjustment is already there and could be moved if it makes sense to the developers. The interval adjustment is the same as changing the crop coefficient, so I’m guessing that putting it in slider form isn’t a big deal from a software perspective. I’ll leave it to @franz and the Rachio team in general to determine if it creates the false sense of security that I mention above, or has some other gotchas.
Thanks for your comments and taking the time to post them. My intention isn’t to shoot down any of your ideas but am just pointing out potential issues. Welcome to the community and please reach out of you have any questions. The folks on this forum are great at helping out should you need it!