Will a rain sensor help?

Hello -

I have had iro for a few months now. It is summer now and in South Florida it rains frequently in the evenings. I am in a situation which i don’t know how to proceed. Every day my weather station predicts rain and so the rachio has been postponing the watering. Unfortunately most of the times the prediction falters and there is no rain. Recently I have had a week with the same pattern - rain prediction with no rain and hence no watering for the last 1 week. Will adding a rain sensor help? I am thinking that with the rain sensor, iro will know that it did not rain and can do something about it. Is that wishful thinking?

Any other ideas on how I can get out of this situation?

Jose

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Are you on flex or fixed

I have the V1 of the unit. So I am guessing it will be fixed.

If by V1 you mean the first generation, I have that and it can run flex. There are no software differences between Gen 1 and Gen 2.

Go to your watering schedule(s) and do an edit. Under WHEN TO WATER you will see your schedule type.

Hi Linn -

It is currently set to fixed days. I have never tried flexible schedule before. Is that something I should consider?

You’ll find that many people on here love the Flex option. Check out the FAQ’s on flex to see if that works best for you. Based off your issues with the rain and the Fixed schedule, sounds like flex would work great.

But how will the the iro unit know that rain was predicted but it did not rain. My weather station is 6 miles away and it jolly well might be raining somewhere.

Well your options are to use that station 6 miles away, get your own rain sensor, or find someone who uploads their pws to websites for you to download. I don’t personally do this so I’m not one to speak on the specifics of how to do that, but I’m sure a simple search on the forum will yield that answer

You can see if you can find a PWS closer. I use a PWS that is a couple of miles from my house, so it’s pretty good.

This thread has some good info in it. http://community.rachio.com/t/how-does-this-pws-look-to-folks/3670

To be clear, the only thing a rain sensor will give is a fail safe to NOT run a schedule if rain has fallen in your area hat was not predicted.
I have one and it is because my micro climate is a bear, we will get rain here that is forecasted, so it delays my schedule,I have an ifttt recipe,to,set a manual rain delay for 24 hours to allow rachio to record the rain fall and recompile my moisture.

Only if you are willing to put in some work by ordering catch cups and running so,e tests. We the community can help you with setting up the rest.[quote=“joseaugustin, post:8, topic:4593, full:true”]
But how will the the iro unit know that rain was predicted but it did not rain. My weather station is 6 miles away and it jolly well might be raining somewhere.
[/quote]

They will not know. If you want accurate accounting, you have to get a pws.

Your best option, if you stay in fixed schedules, is to adjust your rain skip on that schedule to something lighter, like 1/4. But you still fish running on a day it rains with such a volatile microclimate.

Thanks plainsane! I had overlooked the flex schedule part when I had first set it up. When I looked at it today - it looks like a challenge. I am going to put in the work to get it setup. Have ordered the catch cups already. While I get that done, is there any documentation on Flex Schedules? I have a ton of questions and was only able to find a FAQ doc on the website. Is there a detailed guide someplace that you might know of?

@joseaugustin

I’ve tried to consolidate all the articles here.

http://community.rachio.com/t/flex-schedule-guidelines-and-documentation/3799

Hope this helps.

:cheers:

@joseaugustin, it is a challenge that is well worth it!! And the more I dive into it, the more I like what I’m learning! I’m still fine tuning mine, but it is just that - fine tuning. Over all I love the way flex daily works!

And there is lots of good help in the community here.

One other piece of documentation I really liked is http://support.rachio.com/article/304-advanced-zone-setttings. It hasn’t been updated to the 2.6 terminology (it still calls it “As needed” schedule and doesn’t have crop coefficient in it.)

I probably wouldn’t read it at first, get your feet wet with the basics. But this article on the advanced settings really helped me understand a lot better what was going on and why some of my first shot in the dark tweaks/setting worked and didn’t work. It’s worth it just for the first paragraph and the diagram to get the idea of what flex is doing.

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