I’m using a Fixed Schedule with Smart Cycle enabled on my 4 zones. Each zone is scheduled for 30 minutes, for a 2 hour total runtime.
Before the v3 update, my schedule would run something like this:
water zone 1 for 15 minutes (cycle 1 of 2)
water zone 2 for 15 minutes (cycle 1 of 2)
water zone 3 for 15 minutes (cycle 1 of 2)
water zone 4 for 15 minutes (cycle 1 of 2)
water zone 1 for 15 minutes (cycle 2 of 2)
water zone 2 for 15 minutes (cycle 2 of 2)
water zone 3 for 15 minutes (cycle 2 of 2)
water zone 4 for 15 minutes (cycle 2 of 2)
completed, 120 minutes
Seems perfectly normal, right? Now, since the v3 upgrade, my last two scheduled waterings have looked like this:
water zone 1 for 26 minutes
water zone 2 for 26 minutes
water zone 3 for 26 minutes
water zone 4 for 30 minutes
zone 4 soaks for 18 minutes
water zone 1 for 4 minutes
water zone 2 for 4 minutes
water zone 3 for 4 minutes
water zone 4 for 4 minutes
completed, 138 minutes
Why the strange breakup of 26 mins/4 mins instead of 15/15? And why the strange 18 minute soak delay of Zone 4 when it could just go right to Zone 1 for the second cycle?
All of my zones are
warm season grass
fixed spray head
sand
some shade
flat
Zone 3 is “shrubs” instead of “warm season grass” and Zone 4 is “rotor head” instead of “fixed spray head”.
Yup, my upcoming schedule for Sunday shows the same soak cycle and 26 min/4 min splits (except for Zone 4 , Back Lawn, which has the single 30 minute cycle plus the soak).
We found the issue (unnecessary soak) and will be deploying a fix today, thanks for bringing this to our attention!
Next time your watering will be:
water zone 1 for 26 minutes
water zone 2 for 26 minutes
water zone 3 for 26 minutes
water zone 4 for 30 minutes
water zone 1 for 4 minutes
water zone 2 for 4 minutes
water zone 3 for 4 minutes
We did not see an additional zone 4 watering for 4 minutes in your history.
There’s no additional 4 minutes for Zone 4 since I have it set for 30 minutes total and for whatever reason the system chose to do all 30 minutes at once instead of splitting it like the other zones.
It still feels like a 26/4 minute split is odd, considering before the v3 upgrade it was two 15 minute cycles for each zone to make up the 30 minute total. But I’ll see how the update works over the next two waterings.
@windracer In smart cycle we determine the amount of water that a zone can efficiently consume based on zone settings. We take in consideration your nozzle’s irrigation rate, zone slope and soil characteristics. We have calculated these maximum runtimes for your zones before your soil can no longer consume moisture efficiently:
In V3 we irrigate for maximum allowed duration each cycle, unless the remaining watering time is less. Since zone 4’s maximum runtime is greater than total runtime, it gets watered for the entire duration of the zone the first cycle. Hope this helps. Let us know if you have more questions.
