This flow check after watering has finished (for finding leaks between the valves and the flow meter) does not appear to work properly in my system, and the “settling time” setting appears to be ignored. I’m hoping this is just a software issue on the Rachio side that can be corrected.
My setup is running two Wireless Flow Meters, each on independent back flow preventer circuits fed off of the main property water line just after the street water meter. For virtually any zone running on either circuit branch, I get a large 1.3-1.6 gpm “flow detected when no zones active” warning, and I get the exact same error regardless of what “settling time” setting I choose between 1 minute and 10 minutes.
I’ve done extensive experiments physically watching the street flow meter as I run the zones in test, and the water flow always goes to 0 without leaks when the last zone finishes, despite me getting the flow detected error from Rachio after the “settling time” expires.
I even installed a Flume whole-house flow meter that logs the flow precisely to the 0.01 gpm level in 1-minute increments, and check it every time I get this “flow detected” error, and every time the actual flow correctly goes to 0 once the zone has completed. I’ve watched this in at least 10 different instances, with flow always going to zero.
Given that there is no flow coming through the house meter, I’m quite confident this flow error must be erroneously reported. And given that the “settling time” setting has no impact whatsoever on even the level of flow reported, my conclusion is that the “settling time” setting is likely being completely ignored in the latest Rachio firmware (either on the Rachio 3 or on the WFM, I’m not sure where this is implemented exactly).
Rachio, can you please look into this issue with engineering and provide a software update that correctly landlines the “settling time” setting for muli-wireless flow meter installs?
Or if you don’t think that’s the issue, can you advise next steps? Unfortunately there is no way to see the reported flow from the WFMs real-time in the Rachio system. In fact, even running “Calibration” now no longer shows you a flow reading every few seconds, and instead just stays largely blank until it completes 4 minutes later and then gives you a final number. So the handling of the WFM data appears to have changed in the latest controller firmware updates…
Thanks in advance!