Super helpful @CountAlmaviva, I appreciate the extra insight!
Hi,
So it appears that this feature sort of made it into the latest version. Do you have any details about how it works? I have my schedule set to “End before sunrise”. Yesterday my system turned on at 7:30PM and ran for 173 min. Seems like something is either not working as expected or more likely, I just don’t understand that feature.
Thanks in advance,
Loren Okuly
Is your location set correctly under controller settings?
This morning our Flex Daily with this option enabled watered all zones and ended at 5:31AM which was the forecasted sunrise for our zip code today.
The odd thing with this feature is it doesn’t seem to start closer to sunrise even if it is watering only one or two zones instead of all of them. It appears to always assume the maximum schedule runtime and subtracts it from sunrise.
3 Likes
Oh I bet that is it, looks at total run time and backs that out from sunrise. Since my total run time is 9.5 hours, starting at 7:30 would have finished at 5AM.
Rachio,
Can you confirm? If that’s how it works, maybe we could add that to the feature list. Obviously running at 7:30pm increases the risk of fungus and other things that aren’t good such as not allowing me to play with my two year old boy after work since the sprinklers are on 
Seems simple enough, when you make the decision on whether or not to run you estimate total runtime. That’s already in the system today. Seems simple enough to back that run time out from estimated sunrise for the controllers zip code and then set the start time for that iteration.
My system only runs every zone for full run time once per year, startup. The rest of the year it can probably start early morning after the family has gone to bed and finish just before sunrise which seems more ideal.
Thanks in advance,
Loren Okuly
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End by sunrise with flex daily is kind of a beast 
Here is a better explanation and @theflexdude can answer some questions as to why it is so difficult.
We currently do have to account for all the zones watering in the flex daily schedule.
Well, my big question of course, since I was the one suggesting this feature, can I look forward to some royalties now - Just kidding, haha! Thank you so much Rachio team for implementing this into your app! You guys are awesome!
Big thank you and best wishes from Dallas, Texas!
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I still don’t get this, it feels awkward especially for the “smartest” schedule type. 
Our system ran today for the first time this season and watered all 7 zones as expected. The schedule shows it will water only 5 zones on the 11th from 1:53 AM to 3:22 AM. It has decided this 48 hours in advance based on zone settings and forecast. It also has tentative custom schedules for the 17th and 18th.
The system knows what a full schedule needs for time if all zones were empty moisture. Let’s call it 210 minutes as an example. I’d expect it to do a recheck of conditions at something like oh maybe 240 minutes before sunrise, validate how many zones need to run, if wind/rain skip is in effect, and then adjust the start time closer to sunrise if fewer than all zones will be run.
It is hard as the consumer to understand this device can do magical voodoo schedule planning weeks in advance, yet also cannot subtract today’s runtime length from today’s sunrise time. 
The current logic sort of feels like it’s own worse enemy and preventing the underlying benefit from being fully realized. I am 
this relatively new feature becomes more logical for us flex daily users in the future. 
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Thanks @scorp508, now @theflexdude will not sleep for weeks. I know he wants to revisit this when we have time.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Agree 100%, feels half-done in its current form. It’s not a huge deal since I understand how it works, but I think most new customers will continue to be confused by this feature until it is updated to finish today’s watering by sunrise, instead of the total schedule runtime, which includes time for zones that may not be watered today.
For now I have created an acceptable workaround for my situation. I split my single Flex Daily schedule in to two, using the odd/even interval days. This moved my start time from about 1:30 am to 3:45 am, getting much closer to sunrise. Luckily I do not have watering restrictions, so this was an option for me.
I absolutely agree with everything that is brought up. The perfect functionality requires an enormous amount of state for just one schedule type configuration. Limited on time we went with a stable yet imperfect implementation. Once there is time this will definitely be revisited.
5 Likes
I’m hoping this is revisited sooner rather than later. I’ve had to revert to “Start at a specific time” because “End before sunrise” (which is recommended) starts watering at 11:23 pm and finishes way before sunrise. Now I have mushrooms growing in my yard, which I’m not super thrilled about…
But what happens when when all your zones align and all water in one night? You’d still be starting at the same time…how is that any different?
I manually set the start time for 3am. If they all have to run, I’ll be watering past sunrise. I’d rather water past sunrise than grow a ton of mushrooms.
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@theflexdude - since you guys are looking at this for a future release, I’d love to see an OFFSET option for “finish by sunrise” Ex. so you could finish watering by sunrise - 30 minutes
It would help me evade the sprinkler police that roam the neighborhood in the early AM to make sure we are watering on our assigned days
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What will be worse is when the fungus starts. The whole point of not watering in the evening is to avoid having the grass wet all night. I split my schedule into two, split by odd even, and have it stop before 6am.
I second the need to enhance the app to address this. I ran into this tonight and glad others are talking about it. Add one vote from me.
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I agree the “end by” functions are completely worthless. Only way to get anything close to.acceptable requires multiple jumping through hoops to guess and hope it will continue to work. Please make this function actually work to end at a the time specified and be able to calculate based on only the zones that run.
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My overall impression (as a first summer Rachio user) is that Flex Daily is not the mode that the average person is intended to use. It seems quirky (such as the bug under discussion here) and the UI is full of stats that don’t pertain to it. It feels like Flex Daily is an afterthought in the product.
My lawn is brown and I am thinking the solution is Flex Monthly not fiddling around with Flex Daily.