When creating a schedule, stop making me uncheck every other zone

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I’m adding schedules for each new zone I build, and each time I add a schedule, I have to uncheck all the other zones I’m not using, even zones I haven’t even configured to be active in the controller. The assumption that a new schedule will include EVERY zone I have, even ones I haven’t set up, is flawed but specifically it just makes creating a schedule take 12, or 11, or 10, or 9 extra clicks until I’m down to my 16th schedule.

Also given that I cannot change the watering method from fixed to flex to intelligent, I am often creating a schedule, testing it briefly, then deleting it and recreating it with different settings. So I find myself in the “create schedule” page a lot, unchecking all those boxes, every time, over and over. This is a crazy GUI flaw.

Can this be fixed? Maybe a “select/un-select all” check box to give people the option to do it either way?

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Hey! That does sound annoying. One thing the schedule creation screen is supposed to do when setting up a schedule is start with any disabled zones not selected. The zones you mention that aren’t used or setup, do you plan on watering them ever? If not, it may be a good idea to mark those as disabled under the zone settings.

Once you do that, when creating a schedule, those zones you’ve disabled will not be checked. Let me know if that helps or not. Thanks!

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I just tried this solution and it only partly helps but doesn’t really solve anything. I am eventually going to use all my zones (and potentially expand if Rachio would integrate controllers). All the unused (so far) zones were disabled, and then would not appear when I make a new schedule. But all the already configured zones, the ones I already have set up and on their own schedule, still appear in each new schedule and are still checked, so I still have to uncheck all of them. With each new zone I enable and then build a schedule for, I still have to uncheck all the other active zones, and when I get to my last zone to configure it will be back up to having to uncheck all 15 others. So this isn’t really a fix. The assumption that any new schedule will include ALL active zones in it regardless of whether they are already in a schedule or not, is just flawed logic. Again a check box for all/none would be better, but really who puts EVERY zone into one schedule, EVERY time they make any schedule?

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I am curious as to why you are setting up so many different schedules. There is no need to have a schedule per zone. I have 3 schedules that I use during the regular watering season, and the only reason I have 3 is that I prefer to set the watering start times. One for my lawn, one for some annual flowers, and one for my drip zones that I water during the daytime. But there is not even a need to do that. Then I have 3 more fixed schedules for when the lawn is overseeded, those because I want to have very short waterings at specific times.

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I have a wide variety of landscape/garden types. Just in my grove, I have mature Avocado and mature Citrus, and baby Avocado and Citrus. I have four zones just for that. A 2 year old Avocado might need 10 gallons per day in the summer, and an 8 year old might need 40 per day. I’ve already measured my heads for flow rates and to make things simple they are all set roughly the same, so I vary the amount of water they get by the run times. Putting them all on one schedule then tinkering with the flow rates would be infinitely more difficult. Some trees need a deep soak every 10 days, other trees need a lighter soak more frequently.

Then there is the palm trees which need much more frequent watering than the grove does.

Next in the garden, I have multiple different beds with different needs. Some drought tolerant plants that need infrequent watering, some newly sowed lettuce than needs to be kept moist (3 soaks per day in the heat), tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries and most other garden vegetables that you typically use to make salads. 16 different raised beds each with a different crop in it, all with their own sets of needs. Some needs are similar and could be combined, but as plants in a specific bed grow and their needs evolve, if I can’t customize that one bed’s run time, I’d have to rip out 1/2 gph emitters and replace them with 1 gph, then 2 gph, and hope thats the right amount, or add emitters then potentially remove them . Instead I use 1 gph emitters for every bed and adjust run times based on that beds water needs. Not all drip beds should be given the same amount of water, and its just far easier to edit run times than to tinker with flow rates of emitters.

I get if I had a large yard of grass, with a lots of zones because of max pressure/flow per zone, then I could slam them all into one schedule and let Rachio sort them out. But I have a lot of different water needs and a very high water bill, so I want to water every zone as little as possible to stay healthy. As I observe one bed’s plants needing more or less water, if that bed is on the same schedule as every other bed, again I’m back to tinkering with flow rates of drip emitters vs simply tapping a few clicks on my phone. Isn’t this sort of why Racho was invented, to make this easy?

BTW, you have three types of landscape (lawn, flowers, drip) and you mention having six schedules. I will eventually have about 22 zones and probably about 16 or 17 different schedules based on the needs described above. Trust me, where I can combine zones because the water needs are similar I certainly will, but right now each new bed I plant gets its own schedule and the grove will have at least two schedules until they are all the same size trees.

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Seems like this is still how it works. When I create a new schedule, I have to un-select all the other zones, its insane user unfriendliness. How hard is it to have a “select all” check box that toggles all zones to be included/excluded from a schedule?

Just to be clear, because I am not currently using my Rachio for all my watering but I want to so badly, I have 4 schedules right now, one each for four different zones. When I add a 5th schedule, I have to uncheck 11 zones. When I add a 6th schedule, I have to uncheck 10 zones. And so on.

Why can’t I simply add zones to the schedule that I want instead of remove the ones I don’t want?

Edit: I did check and disabled Zones don’t automatically get selected for new schedules, and now it does seem that existing active zones which are already in an existing schedule also don’t show up… so eventually it will work as it should once I disable ALL my unused zones and then re-enable them one by one as I add schedules. So much extra clicks when it should be “select the zone you want to add” instead of “remove the zones you don’t want to add”.

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