Honestly, appalling 
I am surprised and disappointed that this has not been fixed for three freaking years. My flex daily is supposed to run for 2.5 hours and it is starting it’s run at 1AM and ending at 3.30AM. Rather than starting 2.5 hours before sunrise (sunrise is at 6am, so starting at 3.30AM).
This is causing fungus issues in the lawn due to the moisture sitting on the grass for that long.
The reason I went with Rachio is that things like this are easier to fix in software but seeing this, I am thinking of returning the Rachio and going with something else.
Unless your maximum run time is extraordinarily long, just start in early morning instead. Here, sunrise is 6:29, so say you have about 5:30 of maximum watering time. Just start at 5 AM instead, and it will always finish by 10:30 AM (which is fine), and usually much earlier.
I agree that this problem should have been fixed, but consider this a good workaround. Even if fixed, SOME days (and quite often after a lot of rain) it will still start at 1 AM for you, causing the same problem.
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That is whaty I am doing right now but it is not optimal. I am basically starting at a fixed time. This makes the whole end before sunrise feature useless for me.
At one point my total run-time was putting my schedule start time at mid-night or 1AM.
Also while I agree this might still be a problem sometimes even with the issue fixed, it should be rarer and for those times, it will be dealt with fungicides that I use when it rains excessively and there is a lot of moisture.
I’ve used the fixed time start from the get go. Just as easy. Looked at my total duration and set it up so that it ends early in the morning, a little after what is sunrise for most of the year. Works fine.
+1 for this is super annoying.
I have rotary nozzles on all of my grass zones, so they already have a long run time. And then I also have clay loam with an AWC of 0.2, so that makes my runtime massive. I have it set to end before 7:15am, so my lawn zones start at 2:30am. Not great for avoiding expensive fungal issues. It’s pretty rare that all my grass zones run on the same day either.
Having the runtime to end later in the morning isn’t an option since I have a black lab who chews everything in the yard, including sprinkler nozzles, and toddlers who want to run through them before we get in the car to go to daycare.
I feel like this issue is pretty ridiculous for being around for so long. It’s not like the HomeKit issue that has tons of different layers to it. It’s calculating a start time. I really can’t believe that changing an equation in start time is THAT difficult for this issue to be hanging around for literal years.
$start_time = $preferred_end_time - $run_time_of_zones_that_are_actually_scheduled instead of
$start_time = $preferred_end_time - $total_run_time_of_all_zones
As a programmer, I’m mildly irritated that such a simple fix hasn’t been made in 4 years. As a lawn owner in the transition zone, though, I read a white paper by Rutgers University that says it’s a myth that watering at night causes disease, and the right time to water is from 10pm to 8am. So I just live with it.
I admit that this Rutgers white paper is the only place I’ve seen such a claim. Other sources, including many university turfgrass departments, say it does cause disease, but I’ve never seen the results of any academic study that proved or disproved the claim. I don’t know what to make of it.
I’ve run across a few articles debunking this as well. If you have a properly watered lawn that isn’t soggy wet all 24/7, I really doubt you will end up with issues. I’ll admit, I’m a native Arizonan, so I can’t speak for really humid climates, but growing up I’ve almost always watered in the evening hours and never had an issue.
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I completely agree with you. Here in Arizona, it’s best to water from 9pm to 8am, due to lower evaporation. The low humidity prevents diseases when watering at night.
I am not sure about a hot and humid climate though
I just wanted to follow up on this - is this even on a roadmap? @franz - I’m concerned with the amount of sleep that @theflexdude has missed in the last 4+ years since the post below…
Any update on this would be greatly appreciated!
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Hey folks!
I’ve posted an update on this in the past, most likely in the HK thread. I should have posted it here as well. But, I’ll have to dig through my posts to find it. I understand that the End by setting on Flex Daily can be frustrating, specifically for users with a lot of zones and a long total schedule duration. We have thoroughly reviewed this request and unfortunately do not have any solutions that we can implement at this time. If you have a lot of zones and a long total duration the best solution is to use “Start at” as Flex Daily will consider the total duration for the start time when selecting “End by”.
It is entirely disappointing to see this is still the case five years later. May as well remove it from the user interface, so what little hope we had can be stomped out.
Honestly, and I say this working for a software company where I’ve dealt with sticky issues, what the heck architectural corner did Rachio paint itself into that $SunriseTime-$NecessaryRuntimeLength is that difficult? 
I know Rachio has played this off as not a big deal for years now, but this is supposed to be a “smart” controller and this just looks embarrassing.
Maybe those AI investments touted a year or two back could help. 
/vent
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I’m in agreement with @scorp508 here. The Flex Daily scheduling is what I’d hoped to be using when I purchased my Rachio, and it is a huge disappointment that it’s not usable at all. I also find it pretty hard to believe that this would be in any way “tricky” to implement.
As others have mentioned, fungal issues caused by water sitting on the leaf blades overnight is something that anyone knowledgeable tries to avoid. The problem is that many DIYers won’t even realize this, and their lawns will develop problems after a season or two. Then they’ll hire a landscaper to come in who’ll apply fungicides, which are very bad for the ecosystem.
More surprising is that “end before sunrise” still shows recommended on the app, even though Rachio has admitted the function doesn’t work as intended…This probably causes increased frustration for new users who setup for first time (as I’m sure most to come on this board)
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