I love my Rachio and have had it for several years. I have just left it on ‘Flex Daily Schedule’, which seems to work well. I haven’t paid a huge amount of attention to it, but it seems to water several times a week unless it rains a lot.
I just read a Scott’s book on lawn maintenance, which said I should water only once a week, but do a very deep watering. It suggests 1.5". It says I might have to be careful to avoid run-off, but other than that do all the water at once. It says this promotes deep root growth and disease resistance. I asked an AI and it seemed to agree.
My questions are (1) Is there a way to do this in Rachio. Like a ‘smart deep watering’ feature? (2) If not, why? Is the Rachio flex system supposed to be better than this?
The Flex system accomplishes this (How do Flex schedules work? if you haven’t seen it before), but the Flex system is (IMO) better because it adjusts for A) local weather conditions such as temperature, rain, etc. and B) allows you to tell Rachio some of the specifics about your lawn (I’ve got sandy loam which drains much quicker than someone who’s got a lot of clay, for example) so it can water more efficiently.
The general suggestion to give a lawn 1-1.5" of water a week is a good initial advice for people just starting to care for their lawns, but you’ve already moved past that by leveraging Flex. You can always refine your zone settings (warning: that’s a deep, but fun, rabbit hole!) if needed as well.
Duration and frequency are going to be based on your zone settings, but if set up correctly, it shouldn’t be watering several times a week, especially this time of year. If you post your settings, the community can take a look at them.
