TLDR; recap - bought a Rachio v3 in February. Set it up with the out-of-the-box settings for my zones, Flex Daily… didn’t go so great. It would skip most of the watering schedules. After lots of questions/frustration and help from users here, I went and did a catch cup test, got my soil ID’d, and did a couple core samples to determine root depth (not great, clay soils and whatnot).
Also got some aerial drone photos taken by a friend so I could accurately calculate square footage.
Anyway, after plugging all that info in, while it does seem to have made a difference to the watering algorithms, I am still having the same basic problem - Flex Daily skips 2-3 watering cycles a week (of the 3 total the city allows us).
It’s forecast to be 81 today. It has been 75-80 every day. And yet my lawn gets 30 minutes or less of water a week.
What other settings can I play with other than just going to a fixed schedule? I don’t really want to, what’s the point in spending 3x the money to effectively disable the smart features? Help!
First off, Flex Daily doesn’t work all that well when limited to 3 days a week of watering and isn’t really recommended. That being said, you say it is “skipping” watering. Is it actually skipping? If so, why is it telling you that it is skipping?
I understand that, but Flex doesn’t work all that well when limited like that. There are a number of users in a similar situation that use Fixed Schedules and utilize the weather intelligence features to skip for rain and whatnot.
If you really want to stay on Flex Daily, post pictures of all your settings for a zone (including advanced), and moisture graphs are helpful as well.
So in my use case where I’m only allowed to water 12 hours a week (6-10 AM, 3x a week) - What’s the benefit of a $200+ smart controller vs. a $20 Rainbird controller and a $20 rain sensor? No offense…
