Hi Rachio team,
I’d like to suggest a change to how Weather Intelligence handles predicted rainfall in Flex Daily schedules.
Currently, when rain is forecasted, Rachio does two things: it skips scheduled runs AND credits the soil moisture balance with the predicted rainfall amount — before it actually falls. The problem is that forecasts are often inaccurate, especially for rainfall amounts. When the actual rain comes in lower than predicted, my zones are already sitting at an elevated moisture level that doesn’t reflect reality, so they don’t trigger watering when they should. Over the course of a week with repeated optimistic forecasts, this creates a real moisture deficit that Rachio doesn’t catch.
My suggestion: decouple these two behaviors.
• Allow forecast data to trigger rain skips (if X mm is predicted, skip the run) — this part works well.
• But don’t credit the soil moisture balance until rainfall is actually recorded by the weather station.
This way, the balance would only reflect real, measured rainfall, while skips could still protect against watering right before a genuine storm. It would make Flex Daily far more reliable in areas where forecasts tend to overestimate precipitation.
Thanks for considering it!
3 Likes
I’ve complained about this one for a while.
Would like to see this also
Unfortunately it seems like any tweaks to their software for the sprinkler controller is a thing of the past. Haven’t seen any substantial updates to the Rachio in a while. They seem to have moved on to their “smart” bulb and light products 