@neilhunt @tmcgahey
thx for the help, I’ll check those things out.
@franz my 2 cents on this as a power user techie and person who has been in both the hardware and software business (incl product design and support)…
When users must understand & change Advanced settings, the tech is not made for the average consumer. There needs to be a ‘wizard’ to run the users through all of these settings and also accommodate for normal situations, which I’m not seeing here - explained below:
Normal consumers will not know what most of the Advanced settings mean, nor will they want to. They buy tech like this to avoid needing to know. Even if they are OK with digging into it, every residential system mixes types of heads/nozzles in a given zone - zones are almost never homogeneous. Plant areas have different flower/shrubs/etc with different flow rate drippers / sprayers on each type of plant. Lawn grass areas often have different spray & flow heads to accommodate slope, shape, long vs short throw areas, etc. even if designed properly, by an expert, they rarely train the home owner… if they do, the 2nd/3rd owners never get that knowledge.
My hope is you can find a way to make this easier and much better. I have some ideas including the simple “look and see” method. Either have a monthly feedback loop where the system asks the user basic stuff… “is the zone thriving?” “are you seeing water pooling or running off?” “do all the areas look like they are getting proper water for growing?” … etc. Then your system can tweak the watering duration.
Rachio tried to water my veggie garden yesterday for 30 min total (which I had to add manually bccuz unlike the SkyDrop, Rachio doesnt tell you!). I have already set Advanced settings. I’ve had my garden for 5 years and know I water 5 min on warm days / 12 min on the hottest days. Even this is over watering a bit.