Watering not being logged - kind of

Ohhh I see - I thought it did water before I woke up and I just didn’t get alerted. So you are saying it planned to water, but then it rained enough to not water so the 24th will look different tomorrow (prob not as high) as it looks now? Also, based on my weather station’s data here, it looks like only .02 inches of rain have fell in the past 24 hours. This would not be enough to drop below the allowed depletion line for tomorrow. However, it doesn’t look like the flex schedule adjusted to schedule a watering for tomorrow to compensate? I am confused. lol

Here are more details:

Right, this is an example where the MAD watering algorithm is doing the correct thing, but the presentation of what the algorithm has concluded is lagging a bit. Tomorrow, the 24th will move out of forecasted status and you’ll see what actually happened.

For my own knowledge, does the water droplet mean water fell not sprinklers watered. So a droplet on a past date means either it rained or grass was watered by sprinkers, or a droplet today means either sprinkers are expected to run or water is expected to fall?

A droplet only indicates days that watered, or days that will water (if the day is a forecasted day).

Precipitation is not explicitly reflected in the graph - meaning, there is no icon in the graph that represents that it rained or that rain is forecasted.

I do believe, now that FLEX is back, that this is an opportunity for Rachio to make the moisture graphs better to clear up confusion.

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So the fact that there is a water droplet on my graph today means the system intended to water but my lack of notification or watering history means it actulay didn’t? And it didn’t why?

My guess is the 0.05 of anticipated precipitation forecasted for today was enough to keep your zone’s moisture balance above your allowed depletion threshold. As to why the moisture graph still predicts a watering today when one actually didn’t happen, you’d have to ask the Rachio folks.

@plainsane and I went back and forth on this in an epic thread that went nowhere, so you’re not alone.

See response from @franz and the ensuing conversation here.

Same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago and I have a good theory for it. IRO adjusts the schedule in real time as the weather forecast changes. The watering was scheduled based on yesterday’s forecast. Then before the schedule was suppose to run this morning, the precipitation forecast changed and it was more than 0.05 inch (say 0.1 inch). That was enough to keep the moisture balance above 0 and the schedule was skipped. Then the forecast changed again (precipitation down to 0.05 inch) and watering is needed. However, the scheduled run time has passed so it won’t run. Had you set the start time to 5pm, it would run. In short, when IRO adjusts the same day schedule, it doesn’t take into account whether the start time has passed. Don’t use the manual fill/empty. IRO will correct itself and run the schedule tomorrow morning when it sees that no watering happened today.

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@goblue you described this very well. @franz, I am in agreement with this, wanted to write it up, but won’t as this is a very good description. If something could be changed in how “today” shows in the moisture levels, it will save a whole lot of confusion. I realize that it really is just perception as we the users see it, since it corrects itself when it gets ready to water, but it sure would be nice if “today” was able to show the mix of what already has happened, and what could still happen. In other words, once the opportunity to set the watering off has passed, the scheduled part gets set to zero, but the prediction of the precipitation amount still shows. Yes, just cosmetic, but still very helpful.

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The proble. Is that flex knows more about what to do than almost anybody and to surface thy data to the normal user will only create more confusion.

Having beta tested flex I have gone through this then and I still do now.

It’s on opaque box where data goes into one side and fucking magic comes out the other in the form of a sprinkler opera.

The graph prediction does not update realtime and @franz will have to correct me but that graph is not updated when the schedule is determine to skip.

I’m pretty sure the algorithm and graph are fairly disjointed

Right, but the hard and most important part (the algorithm) is done, and accurate. Just need to bring the graph in line which can probably be done with a few more conditionals and some color/pattern changes to indicate past/forecast:

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Correct, this is something we can make more in-sync. The most confusing thing for folks is always today’s moisture levels since it is a simulator, and isn’t necessarily using the data we use 1 hour before the flex schedule is supposed to run, hopefully using the most up-to-date, real time weather data.

We are literally re-building large parts of our cloud infrastructure systems from the ground-up to accommodate things like doing predictions, skips, etc. up to 24 hours in advance for flex, fixed, etc. schedules. Over time these systems will continue to evolve, become more intuitive, and eventually be running large government facilities. Well that last part probably is not true, but you get what I mean. Our development team size is definitely moving in the right direction :wink:

:cheers:

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I hope you guys are building a cep engine…it’s a perfect fit for this use case.

Looks like you guys were right. This morning, yesterday correctly shows no watering, today does, and it looks ok. New Question, why didn’t flex adjust the watering time to bring the level closer to 100%?

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Short answer: Read up on Managed Allowed Depletion (MAD)

Long answer: Watering times are based on your zone characteristics (Nozzle PR, Sun, Slope, Crop Type, etc). The goal of flex isn’t to saturate the zone to field capacity. That’s just an upper limit (technically 120% is the upper upper limit). The goal of flex is to make sure that soil moisture never drops below the allowed depletion level. This concept is called Managed Allowed Depletion (MAD). Flex has determined that your zone needs exactly 0.36 in to saturate your soil type at your crops’ optimal root depth. If you kept your zone at 100% capacity, you would be overwatering, likely experiencing run-off, and not giving your crops/grass and chance to root deeper.

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Super helpful. Thanks! This is really the best product community I’ve seen.

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Glad I’m coherent enough to be understood… haven’t had my coffee yet :slight_smile:

I just installed my Gen2 in Feb and knew nothing about any of this prior to that. It was this community that allowed me to ask questions and pick up the concepts.

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Keep in mind, flex will never adjust your watering time. By tonight that graph will be updated to reflect the water applied minus et

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OK - I noticed something else that doesn’t look right to me - hoping some folks can help. Yesterday, my weather station reported .38inch of rain (says last 24 hours, but I confirmed its all in yesterday):

However, when I look at any of my zone’s moisture levels for yesterday, it shows that no additional precipitation occurred. Isn’t this incorrect?

Most likely your selected weather station is not getting its precipitation data recorded. If you go to Change Weather Station, it will sometimes have in red something like No Precip Data Recorded. This happens relatively frequently with my closest PWS, so sometime I have to change to using one about 3 miles further away because it’s data seems to always be recorded.

And even if it shows correct now, it might have not been working correctly when the IRO ran its numbers. I have also seen this happen.

When you say its not getting its precipitation data recorded, you mean recorded to where IRO pulls from? I’ve not had a problem with it until now. As you can see here - its a pretty legitimate PWS.