I have 2 Rachio controllers, a #2 and a #3. I just added #3 since I needed more zones for my yard. When will Rachio provide the merging of 2 or more controller schedules together as 1 combined schedule?
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Hopefully soon or a controller with more than 16 stations
Don’t hold your breath. @franz has made it pretty clear that it isn’t on their roadmap due to the extremely small number of consumers that need more than 16 zones.
If Rachio is counting, count me in as a person with two controllers which I would like to treat as one big one. I doubt it is that uncommon!
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Count me in. I Have 3
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I have 5 controllers. I use the IFTT app to download actuals into a google spreadsheet and then create an integrated schedule based on actuals. Still don’t see individual stations. so I create that to equal run times. Would be nice if Rachio did this.
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Count me in as well! I’ve been requesting this for almost four years. I have four controllers. Currently just using three (combined zones to make scheduling easier).
Not all my controllers have 16 zones being used. It’s the fact that I have 2.5 acres and not all my zones are wired back to a central location. I have two controllers in one location (Combined the zones on these), and two others in two completely different locations.
I spoke to someone at Rachio a couple of months ago and she said that was a smart idea. She said she had never heard of this feature request before and was going to definitely suggest it. Again, I can’t possibly imagine it’s really that rare…I just don’t think people are voicing their requests and are just dealing with it…
Count me in for support of merging multiple controllers. I have 2 running off the same water source. It is a pain in the .... to switch between the 2.
Also, only 1 has the flow sensor for the whole system. Therefore when the 2nd one runs, I can’t tell how much water is being used in those zones. Therefore add the capability to collect water flow day across several controllers as well.
Wayne in Idaho’s Magic ValleyPut me down too. I have 28 zones. (and would like a couple more)
This really shouldn’t be a big deal programmatically. It really is about customer service.
Program solution is to have 1 virtual controller. Add in the physical controllers (could be as many as the programmer/business analyst chooses) to the virtual controller.
Set schedules using the virtual controller… DONE!!
If you have Indigo home automation software, you can ditch the rachio web interface and the IOS interface and already be doing this!
Come on Rachio! I gave you this suggestion many years ago!
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If you want to just be able to have basic remote access to a controller, that is fine, and there are a lot of other, much cheaper options on the market to do so. Rachio is much more than that IMHO.
I’m sure if it was as “simple” as that, Rachio would have implemented something. I don’t think @franz and @chris are keeping this feature out of Rachio because they don’t care about customer service…
I don’t know about your automation, but mine reads the weather from my Davis vantage pro 2 sensor array. With the intelligence I put into the scripts it is far superior to the stock Rachio web schedules. Plus, since I live in very sandy soil I can tailor each schedule to suit the plants and 1 acre orchard’s needs. However, the main reason I use that is due to the virtual controller so no schedule bumps into another or bothers the family shower or doing dish washing time. My limitation is a10 gallon/minute well pump plus 20-30 days of 100 plus degree days per year. And yes, I was a programmer, business analyst, and software test lead for many years.
Thanks for the feedback. Just curious what type of intelligence you added?
I have 2 gen three Rachio controllers and I love them!!
Scripts that I have developed over several years. Daily rain amount immediately (polling every 5 seconds), for past 3 days, past 7 days and past 14 days. Average rolling weekly temperature which then determines a multiplier used for watering - I find that my very sandy soil with clay at various depths - the multiplier works well especially when the hot summer months can severely dry out the soil, but also during the colder months with less watering.
The multiplier is adjusted based on the average weekly temperature and rain amounts, and gets re-calculated every night. The multiplier is used, for example, if the average temperature for previous 7 days is less than 45 degrees with zero rain for previous 7 days, the multiplier may be .5. If between 45 to 55, multiplier is 1. If average temperature is above 85 degrees with zero rain previous 3 days the multiplier is 6. The multiplier is adjusted during nightly processing. This also means that seasons are not needed as the rolling temperature average takes that into account. Thresholds are easily adjusted in the script. Of course the numbers could be adjuster for numerals instead of decimals if needed.
If rain begins to fall over a threshold amount which varies by different circuits, the irrigation is stopped and an email and text is sent stating which circuit is stopped. Following circuits are not started that day. Rain threshold can be variables that can be adjusted on the fly on the UI (either web or IOS).
My soil is sand over clay. Some circuits have about 4 feet of sand while others have less sand. That makes a generalized schedule difficult for the different seasons. I lost many fruit trees due to soil drying out when the trees were young (6’).
Dang; sounds like you have it dialed in! That’s cool (and sounds like fun).
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+1
I envision this potential architecture:
- UI to offer option to “Merge” selected controllers into one, named virtual controller.
- Once merged, schedules, zones, etc behave normally for this virtual (merged) controller with the distribution of zone/schedule activity done to the appropriate actual controller behind the scenes.
- This virtual (merged) controller would also be the device Alexa (etc) integrations would connect to, offering comprehensive multi-device support rather than orphaning secondary controllers.
(if coding cost is the issue, I’d be happy to pay for the “merge/virtual” option as a separate fee, preferably a 1-time charge. I’m intimately aware of the costs associated with running an online service and SW apps; have endured the demise of Wink, and want services like Rachio to thrive. Users need be willing to pay for these or risk such services disappearing and the devices becoming useless.)
Thanks Rachio team for what’s been a good experience so far!
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Would really be awesome if we could get an update on this. There are multiple threads and requests for this feature; however, it seems like when any of us talk to any of you at Rachio, “I’ve never heard of this request before.” At this point, I"m ready to start looking for an alternative to Rachio…Six years of adjustting schedules to line up and I’m fed up at this point.
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+1 for supporting multiple controllers (SW only feature). I have three gen3s (two installed for 4 years, and another about to go in), and a single irrigation line and have thus had to make an abomination manifold with a fan out to three master valves, three flow rate monitors, then fanning back into the single irrigation feed line. I have to carefully program times so that they don’t overlap (so that the flow rates don’t get thrown off). Having a single controller with a flow rate monitor and master valve, and being able to use additional controllers (for valves on the same line) would be invaluable. If you have a varied garden (raised beds with different watering needs, different lawn zones, trees, shrubs) and want to optimize watering to save water (lots of targeted drip lines etc), then you easily end up wanting lots of zones. It should be something that Rachio encourages (buying more of their controllers!), and make it as simple as possible to expand a system without exotic plumbing.
As many have said, it is a pure software feature too - no long Hw cycles needed, or cost of inventory etc.
(Off topic) in case someone from Rachio ever see this, I’d love an option to do extra watering after a wind skip. Wind = dryer plants = a need to water more to keep them alive. Just skipping and starving the plants of moisture isn’t sufficient to keep them healthy.
What is Rachio’s official stance on this? That would be nice to hear.
As almost everyone has said, it’s all software. Keep it local (one controller is the master and all others are slaves), and you don’t need a centralized web service to run it. The mobile app always talks to the master. Only the master talks to the slaves and the master makes all decisions. All the slaves do is take ON/OFF requests from the master. The slaves basically just append their zones into the master zone db. It doesn’t need to be complicated.