Everything dying... can't seem to calibrate

Thanks for telling me how crop coefficient and nozzle inches impact watering duration and frequency. Not to belabor the point… but that’s a terrible way of doing it. Those figures should be fixed to whatever the true number is. Arbitrarily adjusting them eliminates their purpose. As I said before, there should just be a slider to manually modify duration and/or frequency, so that the system can still be “smart” and make adjustments as per weather, etc, but allow for situations (such as mine, apparently) where it gets it wrong. You’ve figured out a way of forcing that (good on you and thank you!) but from a UX perspective… yuk. Not your fault (unless you’re the developer)

I partly wonder if it is making some broad strokes judgement about where I live? I’m in Canada, therefore I need less water? Strange as it sounds, Canada does have a desert :slight_smile:

Ideally, it wouldn’t be necessary. But if you don’t know the true numbers, it’s a way to make it work for you. How many people know the actual nozzle inches/precipitation rate? The crop coefficient is an average number, and doesn’t account for the variations in crop varieties on any one station. No one is required to adjust those numbers. And you know if those numbers could not be adjusted, some people would be clamoring for that option.

There is a slider to adjust watering. It may still be in beta and not rolled out to all users yet.

When I think about all the complexities and the many variables to determine proper watering, I’d be pretty surprised if we didn’t have to tinker with the settings. Maybe that’s just me.

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The problem with the settings is that they assume “ideal conditions”. It’s a lot like that old science joke that goes “Assuming your cows are perfect spheres…” The math and theory works given the conditions that you have. For example “warm season grass” is assumed to have a root depth of 9 inches. However, someone on here has a type of warm season grass that only has a 6 inch root depth. It’s still a warm season grass (grows best when the temperatures are high), but that variable needs to be adjusted to reflect the reality of that person’s particular situation. The equation is still true: given this set of variables, this is how long it will take for the moisture in the soil to be depleted and need to be replenished, and how long it will take to add that amount of water. What you need to do is determine what the variables are for your specific location. Once you have those dialed in, you should be good and the system should be able to take over from there.

Which isn’t too far from how you set up an old “dumb” system. The advantage of Rachio is that once you have the system set correctly, it should respond to the environmental changes better than the “dumb” system did.

I just read another post about issues with the controllers or firmware for Canada, at least with Flex scheduling, might be your problem. Thought I also read it was fixed though, but idk?

Another thing, the nozzle centimeters per hour for you is not the same as whatever your emitter flow rate is listed as. Sorry I don’t use metric! Emitters in the US are in gallons per hour but you can’t just divide that by 60 minutes to get nozzle inches per hour for Rachio. All other variables aside (root depth, etc), there’s an established formula for calculating an accurate precipitation rate over an area (GPM x 96.25 / area). However I found with drip lines to calculate a more accurate nozzle inch per hour for Rachio is to do GPH instead of GPM. So GPH x 96.25 / area and then divide again by the # of emitters. So for example if I have 1000 emitters with 1 GPH for 1000 square feet, 1000GPH x 96.25 / 1000 sq ft = 96.25 nozzle inches per hour (for Rachio) then divide by 1000 emitters = 0.09625" nozzle inches per hour for Rachio. Obviously 96.25 inches per hour will water significantly less time than 0.09625 inches per hour would to provide the same soil moisture. I don’t know if that’s the legit way to do things but that ends up calculating a watering time very similar to what I’ve done for the past decade on my property. I’ve had some back and forth with fellow Rachians on this forum about it but my method seems to work. My drip lines however are not in a grid pattern and not used for lawn, so might not be applicable to your situation.

Oh, I also read your mention of Tesla and want to give you some sh*t, lol. That’s like comparing apples to apple computers. Tesla’s not only have hundreds of sensors and other hardware, they also have satellites gps and other ish to help drive on manmade roads. Comparing that to a sprinkler controller which waters natural stuff is a Halo reach. The Rachio is a single device, unless they start making their own sprinkler heads which measure soil moisture, root depth with ground penetrating radar, actual flow rate, etc, there will need to be manual input. Just saying ¯\(ツ)

Hey there! While frustrating for you all, some really good stuff came out in this thread.

@bcsteeve I hear you that we have made this stuff too complicated. As others have pointed out, we have essentially exposed an algebra problem, but haven’t given enough guidance or affordances for setting the variables, or even information on how they work.

@tmcgahey thanks as always for jumping in and helping the Rachio community out :pray:. And thanks to everyone else too on this thread that have jumped in.

I think the concept of garbage in, garbage out nicely defines the area of UX we are currently focusing on. We want to innovate on the “garbage in” part so that we don’t get garbage out. Our research over the last couple of months has sussed out these insights, generally:

  • Customers don’t know much about their zones or irrigation system
  • Customers can’t tie “schedule types” to their actual watering needs
  • Customers find so much configuration-to-value exhausting
  • Customers mistrust what we and they setup and make changes to
  • Customers have to deal with even more advanced domain knowledge to make adjustments to schedules they and we have created

Basically, anchored on false precision (garbage in), the industry drives algebraic intelligence and doesn’t make it easy for customers to understand and correct that algebra.

:point_up: Does that ring true for some folks here?

While solving this wont’ be easy (as others have pointed out here), this is going to be where we’re going to spend some time. We’re going to make irrigation accessible through proper design and common sense intelligence. We’ve adopted the mantra of “Don’t do weird, dumb s**t to our customers [that they don’t expect]”. And that means things like letting them go down configuration paths that product unexpected/undesired schedules.

@bcsteeve if you’re interested in talking to us, DM me and we’ll set up some time.

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@chris : one of the many difficulties is that what is common sense to one person is NOT common sense to another. If it is follows the KISS (keep it super simple) method, will the advanced user still be able to tweak the various parameters as they see fit?

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@chris 110% what @Thomas_Lerman said!!!

Yes! we are definitely taking into account how we sill support novice and advanced “modes” for lack of a better term—“guided help” or “get me right down into the nuts and bots”.

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Awesome, I realize that people like me, computer geek that is also lawn nerd, might like the options as you just described.

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Hey Bcsteeve, I’m with you. I’m an electrical engineer with 30 years experience designing test equipment and writing software to control that equipment and I still gave up trying to get my Rachio to work in anything other than manual mode. If I want a science experiment I’ll go to work and get paid for it. Hopefully the UI engineers at Rachio can figure this out, otherwise I don’t see a future for this product. I wouldn’t recommend it to my neighbors as it is today.

I’d say Chris’s response is certainly encouraging. After thinking about it more, I’m not sure a lot has to change. Either the behind the scenes magic just had to work better without users being agri-scientists… or it has to be better documented and more transparent what the adjustments do

What I should never have to do is change a setting from correct to incorrect to get the system to behave differently. I mean, if my nozzle is 0.5 in/hr, factually, for example, it should never be required that I modify that to an imaginary figure to get the system to water longer or shorter. If that’s what we want, then it should simply be “water duration adjustment” so it is clear what happens.

Calibration/adjustment is fine. It is expected. But it should be separate from the data on the advanced page.

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I realized that I did not finish my thought in my last post. It seems that a definite need exists for the “guided help” style of mode also exists. I would have to say that the UX for both extremes or all people is one of the more difficult things. I have learned quite a bit and am enjoying it, yet realize that I have quite a bit more to learn. These experiences have allowed me to help more neighbors, co-workers, and family in various capacities . . . most of which have a Rachio and they are not using them the same.

It’s not just about guided help. Actually, I think the “easy” settings is probably a good starting point (just needs single point irrigation support). Any learning system needs a feedback channel and that channel has been missing from Rachio. Even for advanced users there has to be a way for Rachio to calibrate the outcomes of its algorithm against reality. “Needs more water” and “Needs less water” feature that’s coming up is a step in that direction.

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Correct, as @chris was saying “for lack of a better term”, “novice”, “guided help”, or you said “easy”

It is nice to see Rachio personnel are actually reading these threads… here is my two cents. I have had the same issue with my plants dying and Rachio just not watering enough. At the same time i love my Rachio because it does not water if it just rained or even if it is supposed to rain. It’s not perfect but it does have all the knobs to make it run perfectly. I’ve got 15 circuits and I have messed with the Advanced factors to try to fine tune them. I even purchased the famed flow meter and installed it thinking this will make Rachio even smarter. I have to admit, the flow meter was pretty cool, but it only lasted a year before it gave out and actually caused a glitch in the software. After a while, i just gave up on trying to fine tune it. When i think a zone is getting over watered, i just go in and manually “fill” the zone I’m worried about. If i think a zone is too dry, i manually “empty” the zone. Rachio then responds and simply reduces watering or increases it. The nice part is that I can do this from my phone when i sit down and relax. You can see the schedule change. There are too many variations in rain, my inefficient coverage, humidity, temperature, water pressure, etc. to make Rachio run perfectly. So, i just manage it.

I hope they come out with a flow meter that actually works, is reliable and is integrated into the software telling Rachio how many gallons/SQFT is actually sprayed on your zone. That way you don’t really need the type of head and try to estimate the amount of water and if the water pressure changes, it still knows. It might be nice too to sell an integrated moisture sensor that would give Rachio a sense of the actual moisture level. That way you could bypass all of those fancy calculations and factors and have something very simple to understand.

One more thing, A lot of my issues is not with Rachio, but the fact that many of my dry spots and wet spots in my yard are caused by the uneven watering of my sprinklers. Since my system was put in, my plants have grown a lot and simplly block areas from getting water. This makes a dry spot and a wet spot. Rachio can’t change that.

All in all, i would not want to go back to the old manual controller. I love my Rachio.

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You make a good point about plants blocking sprinklers, which leads me to this thought:

Rachio has the potential to work best with drip systems. Drip systems are inherently more efficient, and there actually is a relationship between flow and what gets to the plants, whereas overhead sprinklers there isn’t (what is flowing through the pipe could be going entirely onto the sidewalk if pointed the wrong way. Or, as just pointed out, blocked by a plant).

Yet, rachio seems bias toward overhead. Inches per hour, for example, really only makes sense from a rain perspective Volume, not height, is what should be used for drip zones (and can also work for sprinklers, so maybe just switch that!)

On the other hand, I do NOT recommend switching to subsurface drip for lawn like I did. I believed the theory, but reality hasn’t worked out I’ve struggled to keep my lawn alive since switching and that isn’t (entirely) due to my rachio troubles. If you’re frustrated with wind, positioning, evaporation and other issues with overhead, I suggest eliminating the lawn instead lol. I wish I had, and that will be my next move.

Simplifying the experience so it becomes overly simplistic is not the right answer either.

In the end i think people in the thread overly complicates the user experience. This is relatively simple.
Customers seek an outcome. What are the minimum number of inputs that lets customers get that outcome? How many of these inputs can be reduced or deduced from other data sources?
How do you make these inputs with natural language so it doesn’t require an expert or understanding of science?

What can be inferred with other sensors or other data?
How can a feedback loop be applied to correct erroneous inputs or allow for optimization?

give power users an API and don’t let their desires clutter the interface.

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I agree with most everything you said:

  • oversimplification is not the answer either
  • not cluttering the interface
  • the API being more open and/or expanding it
  • etc.

However, I do not think there is any reason why the apps (phones/web) cannot have, for example, a setting to allow for more advanced options to be available for tweaking, etc. with the caveat that it not being checked does not clutter the interface. If one has to go to somewhere else to use the API, that in my opinion would be rather confusing.

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There are a ton of good points in here, but the issue I see with “easy mode” or whatever we are going to call it, is that you are still going to have people coming in here and saying that Rachio is killing my yard, or I have a swap, what do I do. If you set up Rachio with all the defaults, chances 50/50 that it will work FOR YOUR YARD, it is just a fact. One of the biggest issues people have is the preconceived notion that the way they were watering BEFORE Rachio was right…and when Rachio wants to double the run time, people panic, not realizing that they won’t be watering daily like they had prior. Sometimes it feels like they just need to take a leap of faith and trust the process!

The only thing I see that could help would be on the drip side, as that always seems to confuse people since drip isn’t measured in PR, rather GPM. If programing would allow, change that, but you’d still have to figure out how to manage those like me that have a “well planned” drip system that separates, trees, shrubs, and perennials into different zones, and within those, each plant has a different number of 2gph emitters running to them based on their watering needs or size. You build around a “correctly” built drip system, then what about the guy that has every tree, shrub, and flower on one zone with a single 1gph emitter running to each plant? How can you make them happy?

My point is that there is no way to account for every yard with simple settings. You can simplify all you want, but you will still have issues with people complaining that Rachio isn’t doing “what it should.” I think the Thrive stuff that is being integrated into standard Rachio with the “water a little/lot more/less” will fix a lot of the issues people are having. If they feel Rachio is under watering, they can hit a button and it will self adjust, and mask poorly set up systems.

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As the OP, my point is being missed here. It isn’t that the system isn’t “easy” enough. Its that the “advanced” settings are not at all explained and there was no obvious way to calibrate.

Ultimately, you’ll note, I did figure out that I could download the historical usage so I could, in fact, see what the GPM rachio thought was being put out didn’t match what actually was. From there, with the advice of some here, I could tweak the advanced settings to compensate. BUT THAT IS THE PROBLEM. The system, as it is now, is asking me to put in FALSE data to achieve the calibration. “False” has to be taken with a grain of salt. Some data being requested is hard to know for sure. But if my meter is telling me my emitters are putting out 0.5 inches per hour (or whatever) and I enter that value into the system and then the system is under or over-watering and the advice is to increase or decrease that value from what has ALREADY BEEN SET AS CORRECT, then there is zero point in having that setting, and instead it should be called “arbitrary adjustment factor” and be properly explained as to what changing that number does.

There is a place where these settings are described but not to the extent where it gives the user any idea of what changing them does.

Also… your ‘correctly’ built drip system is incorrect. You should not mix emitters. If a zone has 2GPH emitters then every emitter on that line should be 2GPH, no more and no less. As one random source:

" Mixing emitter flow rates

Mixing different emitter flow rates together on the same system is not a good idea. Pick a single flow rate and stick to it. Plants that need more water should have more emitters per plant, do not use emitters with higher flow rates on them. An exception is with potted plants, where different size pots and types of soil in the pots make using adjustable flow emitters the best choice."

from Drip Irrigation Emitters

edit: I may have mis-read your post. Maybe you are already doing that.

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