I’ve had my Rachio for years now and I have really loved it, but I just moved to a new house and now have watering restrictions: only every 3rd day, and only before sunrise (the earliest sunrise here is ~5:30am) or after sunset (~8:30pm).
I had set things up as three separate schedules, each running all of my zones for a total of 39 minutes: one starting at 12:01am, one ending before sunrise, and one starting at 10:30pm. That’s great, but causes two problems:
- Seasonal Shift only looks at each schedule individually, not as a group, and so it does REALLY weird things like more than doubling the runtime!
- Weather Intelligence likewise looks at each schedule individually, skipping when there might be a little bit of rain (because the rain amount is bigger than any single schedule run, but not bigger than the total required for the day).
Bringing it up with the AI, it confirms these issues. Seems like I have two options:
- Create a single schedule to start at 12:01 am, and set cycle times and soak times such that it spreads it all out before sunrise (with no watering at all in the evening)
- Create one morning schedule with a cycle and soak such that 2 cycles get completed, and then a second schedule in the evening
#1 means I’m not spreading out my cycles nearly as much as I could. #2 still has the multiple schedule issues, but perhaps not quite to the same extent. Neither of them are great options.
Is there a better way?
Given global warming, these kinds of restrictions will likely become much more commonplace, so if there’s not a better way I’ll definitely bring these up as product suggestions!