So, the reason of water gallon usage is disappeared in V3

I never understood what square footage has to do with gallons used. You don’t know how big of area I’m covering. Is it set close or far, 360, 180 or 90 degrees.

Really, who cares about square footage. If I have 5 sprinklers on a zone that each distribute 100 gallons per hour, then obviously I’ve just used 500 gallons in a hour. Period. No square footage required.

In fact previous to V3, the gallons used was just a wild guess, but a hell of a lot better than minutes used. What does minutes used tell me? Guess I could do the math myself using the formula above, but isn’t that what computers are for? I think you guys are WAY over thinking this…

Mike

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I agree that gallons used needs to be re implemented ASAP!

I also agree that the old method of calculating usage was overly burdensome but was necessary to implement the more complicated / precise moisture levels of a given zone.

This is why I have suggested a 2 level user interface in the past. There needs to be a standard user and professional user interface. The standard user interface can simply ask the user to enter the gallons used per the water meter after 10 min of run time in each zone. No flow meter, nozzle types, grass type, root depth, slope, or other info necessary. Then give the user a +/- water per zone on the flex daily schedule. A zone is dry, + water on that zone. When a user +/- on a zone, remind them that this adjustment can take several days to acclimate and should not be adjusted excessively. Pretty simple. Then make the professional interface as complicated as the pros want.

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A head that covers 360 degrees should put out 4x the water than a head that covers 90 degrees. Else the efficiency of your system is way low. Pr is the distribution of a volume of water over an area, hence square footage. You should look at the formula for pr, it has area in it, it just gets normalized out so you have to add it back in to work backwards. It’s basic algebra…

This discussion we are having really highlights why it was removed.

P.s. if you have a mixture of patterns with the same nozzle on each head, your system has an efficiency rating so low, it makes a 70’s hemi blush.

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Precipitation Rate was the incorrect term that I used. Yup, I understand algebra, and a lot more. Oh, and I don’t own a Mopar either. But I digress…

I’m not a yard nerd so the term I should have used was GPM. After all, that’s what we’re trying to ascertain, gallons used? Right? Doesn’t make any difference whether I’m doing 360’s or 180’s (not in my hemi) or what my area is, because all I’m concerned with if how many GPM is running though my nozzles. I don’t care where it’s going or what it’s efficiency is. Just GPM.

All my nozzles are the same and using a catch cup test, I know what my Pr is and efficiency is as well. That’s what’s plugged into the app. Even if I have a mix of nozzles in a zone I can average them. Yeah, there are people that don’t go to the trouble of a catch cup test. In fact they just pick one of the standard nozzles offered to them in the app, which means they’re probably way off in calculations.

Point being, whether I go to the trouble of doing a catch cup test or just select a standard nozzle, there’s a Pr for my zone (actually per nozzle as Rachio doesn’t know the number of nozzles), and if I know how many nozzles I have in that zone and what my average Pr is, I can calculate my GPM. Bingo!

If you’d like to tell me how minutes ran tells me anything then feel free to explain it. To me it means nothing unless I do manual calculations myself.

P.S. It will all become a moot point once my V3 and flow sensor show up!

Mike

A rotor head turning 360* or a fixed 360* spray head?

Rotary.

Yea, I think that is the point.

So the point I’m trying to make, if you have a rotary at 360, without head to head coverage, that 360 nozzle should have 2x the gpm flow rate as the 180 nozzle, so to capture gpm, rachio app would require not only number of nozzles but gpm for each nozzle. That’s more ghetto in my opinion than removing the feature or using pr.

Calibrating the Rachio so that reported gallons used is accurate is as simple as noting the reading on my water companie’s meter and the Rachio, running the zone for like 3 minutes, comparing the readings and adjusting the custom nozzle setting (in v2). I have 15 zones and this took less than 5 minutes/zone to set up. The gallons used as reported by my Rachio was within 2% of what the water company billed me. No cups, no square footage, simple.

Bottom line. Give users this simple set up if need be, but regardless GIVE USERS LIKE ME THE FUNCTIONALITY WE HAD IN V2, PLEASE.

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I would agree that having a GPM setting per zone would be a simple beneficial addition … but that might undermine the market for a wireless flow sensor. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I too am very disappointed to see the gallons used removed. After calibrating my system and measuring actual areas my efforts have been thrown away by this new software version.

I liked the old version very much and while I would expect some changes (hopefully improvements) I find this new version a big step backwards in a lot of ways.

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How about a toggle in the UI so those of us that want gallons can keep that, perhaps after agreeing to a disclaimer about how it may be inaccurate? I spent considerable effort getting all the numbers right so the GPM was accurate per zone.

Or more generally, how about an Expert mode toggle for those of us that understand what all the various settings are and how they’re used. That way you can make the general UI easier for people to understand without alienating the power users that already did the work.

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I am a Rachio Gen 2 user for about a year. Last year I loved the product and recommended it to many of my friends. This year I’m not so sure: the user data in gallons used and the bar chart presentation of this data has disappeared. Using a Rachio is all about managing water usage. I can’t believe you took away my usage data.

I hope you have some authority to fix this. The people I have communicated with at Rachio say they understand my issues but can’t do anything about it.

I’m not a power user or an integration specialist. I’m an ordinary user who went to Home Depot and bought your product and got a rebate that covered most of the cost. Usage data in minutes is meaningless to me and buying a Gen 3 with power sensor for $300 and hiring a plumber to install it, just to get the functionality I had last year, seems wrong.

I spoke to Kyle Pontis last week. He told me something about law suits due to accuracy. OK, but there must be a more creative solution out there. Some seem to think it is difficult to set up, but is that a reason to remove the functionality? (Setting it up is really as simple as using the water company’s water meter to set the flow rate for each zone. No cups, no complex formulas.)

Maybe you could let us use version 2 of the app while you are fixing version 3.

I appreciate Kyle taking the time to explain what he knew about this issue. He is a very pleasant and knowledgeable guy.

if lawsuits are the issue, seems like an appropriate, in-app disclaimer before displaying the gallons used would alleviate any risk.

:cheers:

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Glad to see this should come back as its one of the few things I thought to be a nice thing over that of my WeatherTrak unit that I had to transition from. I’ve not really gotten to use my Rachio much because I just got the notice to change right as we were heading into winter. But I did go and measure zones carefully as I was interested to get that information as accurate as possible. Even have catch cup precip rates so yea like I say I was kinda looking forward to having that information. Its also one of the key elements that I was looking forward to having in the Nest integration email data.

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Has this been resolved yet?
I am a new user and expected to see gallons used but so far have been unable to get it to display on the app (IOS) or the website.

Go to your Account Setting. In their will be Usage Units that you can set to either time or gallons.

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Thanks for the help. Think / hope I sent a message to you thanking you.
My other comment… This should be an AND thing not an OR thing… Show both please. Also add the time it started and stoped… Multiple times if multiple runs…

Also… Add a feedback button on every page. No better way to improve the app then letting us comment on every page. TIA

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Good grief, I just read “What are advanced zone setting?” help…
I have recently installed two Rachio 3 Units, and am very happy with operation and user interface.
Help: I was exploring how to set litre used per zone instead of time. How do I do that, please.

Wow, all I was stunned at how comprehensive the settings are, left me baffled, on first read.

I have seven zones (3) on the front garden, (4) on the rear garden, on (2) Rachio 3, in a suburban environment. For simplicity initially, I set a fixed schedule.

I thought I should be able to set litre/minute per zone, based on Water Corporation’s meter readings. But I cannot find a way to do it…

Help please…

Then, after a few months I will probably explore the advanced settings again.

Robert.

Hey @rjmcinnes! Sorry for missing this. Welcome to the Rachio Family :slight_smile:

We don’t currently have settings to view usage in liters, however, you can change from “Time” to “Gallons” by going to More > Account > Usage Units. You’re also able to set your nozzle inches per hour in your zone’s advanced settings, but we don’t recommend users adjust that unless they’re sure of their inches per hour. A lot of users (and pros) will run a Catch Cup Test in order to determine this.

Fixed is a great way to start to understand how Rachio works. Once you’re comfortable with the app and system, consider switching to a Flex Monthly schedule to start learning about how Rachio can help with water savings using weather data!

:cheers: Lo