Today, I noticed that Rachio had skipped the watering yesterday at 6AM because of activated rain sensor. Below is the timeline from Rachio history
Device Update:
Aug 19 - 9:45 PM Rain sensor activated
Aug 20 - 12:51 PM Rain sensor Deactivated
Schedule Update:
Aug 20 - 5:07AM - Zone not skipped because station KIAD observed 0.01 in and predicted 0.0 in and threshold is 0.125
Aug 20 6 AM - Zone skipped due to activated rain sensor.
In this case, the rain sensor was active, however the observed precipitation was less than threshold, shouldn’t the weather station data take precedence over the rain sensor? I am assuming Rachio also looks at current weather condition at the time of running the algorithm to determine is schedule needs to be skipped. Is my assumption correct?
The rain sensor takes precedence. I’m pretty sure that this is because the rain sensor is assumed to be at your actual location while a weather station might be away from your yard, therefore making the rain sensor more accurate.
@Linn Thanks.
From what I have noticed so far, the lag between rain sensor activation/deactivation is quite long. I agree rain sensor to be more accurate to detect rain but I feel the algorithm should consider the duration of activated time period and also take into account the actual rainfall. In my case, the rain didn’t last long and accounted for only 0.01 in of precipitation, but this activated the sensor thereby making Rachio skip the watering.
It sounds like you may want to adjust your rain sensor. I believe that most of them allow you to make adjustments. I know I’ve had a Rainbird one, and now a Hunter one, and I had to adjust both of them.
