I just set up my rachio and first schedule. I spent a lot of time with the zone settings and it spit out a schedule. I was just starting to look at what it came up with, and the first thing I notice is the strange times.
I clicked the recommended “end by sunrise” setting so I was expecting a lot of night time or early morning watering. But clicking on the upcoming days, I see for example today… one zone watering from 4:14 to 4:47pm. Huh? First off, why just one zone? (I have 7) OK, I guess it is spreading things out and/or accounting for the manual watering I’ve been doing over the past few days. But then why those afternoon times? I would expect either right now (because it already after sunrise so “too late” for today) or early tomorrow morning.
It isn’t just today though. Going ahead a few days, I see 4:13 to 6:46 (again one zone only); 4:12 to 4:55 (two different zones); 4:11 to 5:57 (another single zone); 4:10 to 4:53
Hmm… see a pattern? Yep, next one is 4:09 then 4:08.
What gives? The start time is just retreating by 1 minute every day? How’s that make sense? Going out to June 11 I see it starts at 4:04pm and waters for more than 12 straight hours to 4:50am. THAT one actually seems like it is trying to stop by sunrise. But why water 12 hours on that day and only 30 minutes on others? Why not spread it around a bit?
Anything I can do? Anything I should do, or is this correct?
I’m sorry we ever allowed end by sunrise for dynamic, independent zone based flex daily schedules. We just haven’t had the time to rebuild that software (it’s a big lift).
Here are the gory details as to why it behaves that way.
No offense, but that’s pretty bad to have the app specifically recommend two settings that you acknowledge are relatively incompatible. It isn’t that big of a rewrite… it could be done in html to hide the with “recommended” in one setting if the other was chosen. Certainly there are better methods, but I’m just illustrating how simple it would be to throw a bandaid on it until you do the rewrite. Just consider the time you and I both wasted here vs. how long that would take to implement (literally minutes with even rudimentary coding skills). As the CTO you should have that updated before you even have the chance to respond.
Are there some other easier to implement options for dealing with this issue of starting too early?
I have two concerns with the current implementation. First, watering too early at night could lead to mold growth or other diseases. Second, there is less wind early in the morning, and hence more water goes on the grass instead of mist in the air.
I was thinking to split my 6 zones into odd/even Flex Daily schedules to overcome this odd behavior. But it would be really great to find a better solution. E.g. would it be easier to recode the logic to specify start/end watering times, and have Rachio pick the zones with the most need for water that can fit in that time window?
