I was just wondering if Rachio has changed the Fixed Schedules so that they will repeat every year?
I noticed that RainMachine has this feature on their Fixed Schedules. There’s a checkbox for “Yearly Recurring” to make the schedule repeat every year.
I see that nobody has posted an answer yet. I would really like to know.
I don’t believe this is a thing on Rachio. I’m not understanding exactly why you would need this though. If it is a winterizing seasonal thing, you can put the whole controller in standby, or just an individual schedule…
I am using all drip irrigation. I have 4 zones. I want to set quarterly or monthly Fixed Schedules for each zone.We have mild winters here, and a small amount of watering may be used in the winter (unless it’s too cold). I want these schedules to repeat every year without intervention. Like this “Yearly Recurring” option, seen in this screen shot from the RainMachine online web demo:
Why not set up Flex Daily schedules then? It does ALL this for you…no need for 4 different quarterly schedules.
If I had confidence that I could get Flex Daily to work with drip irrigation, I would go that route. I’ve read a lot of posts from people who couldn’t get Flex Daily to work with drip. It seems like the the Rachio settings are complex and sometimes difficult to understand (and tricky for drip). I don’t want to spend weeks (or months) tweaking the settings to get it to work properly. So, I’m not that confident and I’d like to have a simple back-up plan.
I’m not looking for a “set it and forget it” strategy, just “set it and check it occasionally”.
I have a Rachio 3 from Costco still unopened in the box. I guess I could try it on Daily Flex and if it’s too much trouble I could return it. 
Well, it is an advanced scheduling option that requires the details of your yard and irrigation system to be as accurate as possible for it to do what it is designed to do, but for every person with issues, there are plenty of others set up working smoothly, me being one of them for over 5 years. My sprinkler and drip zones have been keeping my yard looking its best in the sweltering Arizona summers.
Just wondering if there are any updates on this issue. Can I have fixed schedules to repeat every year without intervention?
I had one new tree and several plants/shrubs die because I did not realize that the schedules had hard-coded year in them and they stopped working in 2022. garya505 has a very legitimate question/suggestion about being able to set a schedule to repeat every year instead having hard-coded dates with the year in them.
Yes, I don’t know why this would be so difficult for Rachio to do. The RainMachine can do it but they are out of stock, probably until later this year or early next year.
@njaffer I don’t believe the schedules have a hard coded date. When you set up any of the three types of schedules, including fixed, you can specify a start and stop date for the schedule. The stop date has always defaulted to NEVER for me. I set up the schedule in the screen print below in 2021 and it is working in 2022. But if your schedule has a stop sate you can easily change it to NEVER.
I think you can do this now. When you set up a schedule - fixed, flex monthly, or flex daily - you can specify the start and stop date for the schedule. The start date defaults to the date when you create the schedule. The stop date has always defaulted to NEVER for me. That means that the schedule will continue to run regardless of the year. I setup a schedule in May of 2021 that is still running in 2022. My apologies if I have misunderstood what you are trying to do.
Ah, I guess you use one schedule for the whole year? Sure, that would work fine if you select NEVER for the end date.
Yes, you totally misunderstood the problem. If you wanted to set up multiple schedules during the year, let’s say for spring, summer, fall, and winter, they would all need their own start and end date. Unfortunately on the Rachio the start and end dates include the year and there’s no option to make it repeat each year, so will not repeat unless you go in and edit the dates every year.
Until such time as Rachio adds your feature request, have you considered trying a Flex Daily schedule? Many of us do have success with this type of schedule, even with drip irrigation. You do have to get your settings dialed in properly, but once you do you’re good to go with one schedule that works all year long.
I’m sure there are experts in the community who would be happy to help you with your settings if you choose to go with a Flex Daily schedule.
That might be a possibility, but it seems it can be somewhat difficult to get Flex Daily working properly. I ONLY have drip, so using fixed schedules is easier.
You could put a repeating entry in your calendar for January 1 and edit the year in each schedule. Hard to imagine that would take more than a couple of minutes.
Nope. I have 3 zones. A bare minimum would be 4 different schedules for each year. That’s 12 schedules, and having only 4 per year for each zone is too big of a compromise. Monthly schedules would be optimal. This is all drip, and all zeriscape.
Unless Rachio changes this, I’ll probably just change my old Rain Bird monthly until the Rain Machine is are available again, which should be later this year or early next year.
Or…just set up a flex daily schedule like recommended earlier. It isn’t that hard to set up, just some knowledge of your yard and irrigation system.
garya505, I understand exactly what you are asking for, and I agree that it would be helpful in some cases (including mine). Hopefully this can be supported by Rachio.
