Why does Rachio think 8 + 8 = 17?
The schedule shows it should water 8 minutes for each zone:
However water history says it is watering 8 minutes for one zone and 9 minutes for the other zone. The settings for each zone are identical. The problem with the different watering durations is that the zones are not watering on the same day, which is what I want.
It is showing minutes only per zone and no seconds. Through the API, I have seen that seconds do exists, so it is possible they are both 8 minutes, 20 seconds which rounds to 8 minutes display and the total would be 16 minutes, 40 seconds which rounds to 17 minutes.
Yet watering history shows one zone watered for 8 minutes and the other zone 9 minutes. Both zones have identical settings, shouldn’t the watering durations be the same?
The problem is half my yard gets watered one day, and the other half is watered the next day. So my yard is wet for two days, instead of one. I assume it is because of the different watering durations.
I tried a manual empty on both zones at the same time, to get them in sync, but that didn’t help.
Er, new math? Maybe 8+8 really is 17.
You probably shouldn’t be using daily flex then. It’s name says it all,the schedule flexes based on need of individual zones. It will only water the zones it calculates needs it on a given day, not water all zones in a given day.
If you consistently want zones watered on the same days, you probably need a fixed schedule.
Total runtime includes soak time.
You’ve likely have yours set to smart cycle, meaning it will water one zone for four minutes, pause that zone for 5 minutes while running the second zone for 4 minutes, pause the second zone for 5 minutes, wait in idle for a minute for the original 5 minute delay to expire and run the first zone for the remaining 4 minutes at which point the delay for the second zone will expire just as the first zone finishes.
So order of operations will be zone 3 for 4 minutes, zone 4 for 4 minutes, 1 minute pause, 3 for 4 minutes, zone 4 for 4 minutes = 17 minutes total, even though each zone got a full 5 minute soak time.
You’ll see a bigger effect of the soak time if you setup a schedule for one zone by itself.
Please keep in mind that I’ve guessed that soak time was set to 5 minutes in your case, that’s the value that would explain the 17 minute runtime.
You can read more about soaking here:
No, it’s not doing a soak at all.
The two zones in question have identical settings, so I think daily flex should water them identically.
What does the total time show if you remove one of the zones from the schedule?
