Hey,
I have my system set up on Flex Daily and End Before Sunrise, however, it starts way too early.
Even if it’s just going to water one zone for 30 minutes, it starts around 10:50pm.
You can see the attachments for my next 4 watering days, they start at 10:55pm, 10:56pm, 10:57pm, 10:58pm.
Is this normal?
Thanks!
Normal. The start time is based on if ALL zones were to run regardless. I know it bothers a lot of people, and I’m sure someday Rachio will change the system, but for now that’s the way it works.
Got it, thank you for the quick reply!
If I held my breath on this statement I’d be dead many times over. 
We’ve seen all sorts of other stuff introduced like machine learning and the whole Thrive product line, yet years later it still can’t figure out how to do a real dynamic start time where not all zones have to be run. 
Apologies if I sound a bit 
y, just want my smart controller to do another smart thing. 
Yeah this seems like a super easy codefix to do a daily start time calculation. It drives me nuts too, because my kids play out back in the evening and it starts watering. All because I have a few zones of shrubs on emitters, so it waters them for 3h each, which means a super early start time even if it’s just doing a 15-minute lawn zone.
Algo changes don’t drive income like Thrive and a Rachio 4 though 
In your case, separate your emitter (assume drip) off that schedule and put on its own. There is no benefit to not running drip in the daylight hours.
I agree with you. Especially considering some kind of fix wouldn’t be that hard. If a schedule takes 8 hours to run and scheduled to end at 10 am, it could check at 1:55 am how much of the cycle it will have to run. If it decides it needs (for example) 6 of the 10 zones to run for a total run time of 5 hours, then it can reschedule the cycle to start at 5 am. The zones skipped will just have to wait for the next flex daily opportunity. Is it harder than that for some reason?
Until they fix that glich I’d change your setting. Nighttime is the worst time to water!
guys… guys… I already coded a fix for this problem in another thread…
from March…
of 2018 
I also thought that was odd but it has worked great for 2 years now, the only downside to this is that all stations should be checked periodically ( monthly
) for functionality.
It’s kind of crazy it’s 2024 and this has yet to be implemented. I’m sure I’m not the only software engineer in this thread shaking my head.
In my case, watering used to start at 11:00 p.m. or so. In my first two runs this spring, its started at 8:55 p.m. and ended around midnight. I haven’t changed my configuration or my settings (end by sunrise). My system would run 7 hours if it maxed out the zones, which means an 8:55 p.m. start would line up with a 3:55 a.m. completion. I’ve seen total soaks of 90 minutes so I guess adding that in fits where my starts are this season. But I’ve rarely seen even a 10:00 p.m. start in prior years. Has there been a change that’s trying to be smarter, but maybe isn’t working quite right?
You certainly are not. I’ve been in software 40 years and can’t understand what is meant by “there is a lot of state” (coupled with an admission that they didn’t have enough time to implement the feature correctly–six years ago)
The software has already figured out which stations it intends to run, and for how long, weeks into the future. So it has that information already. Perhaps that requires “a lot of state” but it’s now a solved problem.
It knows when sunrise is…just do the math. And update the start time when it recalculates the stations to run and their runtime. It should be one line of code at the end of that procedure and two or three unit tests.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
I bought this controller for this SPECIFIC feature…which doesn’t work. I want my watering to start as close to sunrise as possible–but end by sunrise.
I installed this controller less than 24 hours ago and I’m already considering returning it. Is there any controller on the market that actually works properly?
I was SO excited when my irrigation guy told me about this. Now I’m feeling deflated.
Geez. At least try the “end before a time” option. I’ve used it without thinking about start/end times for 3 years. The grass doesn’t care.
“End Before a Time” and “End Before Sunrise” behave the same.
Tonight for example one zone will run for 21 minutes. Setting the schedule to end before 5am means the program will start at…2:12 am.
It’s a bug, not a feature.
