Add support for "secondary" weather station

Archive
1

So we had somewhere between 5-12" of rain in the Houston area over the last 24 hours, which is why I was really surprised that my Rachio started a flex schedule run this morning. Obviously with a major storm/flooding there’s a lot of power/Internet interruptions, and it appears upon investigation that the nearby weather station I point to has been out of service for 12+ hours (at the time, it’s still off-line). I assume that means that the Rachio didn’t see any data, and therefore started its schedule run accordingly…

The support for WU / personal weather stations is a great feature of the product, but a bit of fallback support for these less-reliable data sources would be helpful. A really simple way to do this would be to allow for a second (even third?) weather station in the configuration. If the first station isn’t responding with current/valid data, then (and only then), try the backup source.

I’d likely keep my normally reliable, close-by station as my primary, and perhaps use a more official (but ~15 miles away) station as a backup. That would have at least figured it better than nothing!

Jeff

(And if Rachio wants to look at my device log, the Flex schedule that ran was for this 5am this morning, 5/28/16).

2 Likes
2

I have a Hunter Mini-Click Rain sensor installed with my system. I’ve also occasionally had problems with my closest PWS not recording precipitation. At least when I get rain and the PWS data doesn’t get picked up, my rain sensor will activate and keep the system from watering. It’s a good fallback.

3

I had my Hunter rain sensor on previously, but I started getting sensor notifications every few minutes (and Rachio asked me what was going on!), so I disconnected it. But you’re right, that is a potential fallback answer.

4

I guess I’ve been lucky that I’ve never had the every few minute notifications from the rain sensor. Occasionally, I get a second or third activated message, but they have always been hours or days apart. The only thing I’ve noticed is that Rachio normally wants to water a day before my rain sensor dries out. But the yard is looking good, so I’m not worried about it.

5

Excellent suggestion. Another reason for a backup would be for when a PWS stops reporting any weather at all, it could automatically switch to the backup.