Flex Daily only watering once per week?

Schedules & Zones Flex Daily
1

Hey there,

I recently setup the Rachio 3 and use both Flex Daily for scheduling and the Smart Cycle for cycle and soak.

I’ve noticed that on the calendar, the system has chosen to only once per week. Why is that? How do I set it water at least twice per week?

I used to water daily with my prior setup, so I don’t to destroy my lawn! Thanks

Thanks!

2

While Daily watering isn’t great, I have to admit if it’s warm where you are, once a week probably isn’t right either. To check this further, we’ll need values for the zone in question, in particular the Advanced settings (a screenshot is great).

But the problem may simply be that rain is expected some days during the next week, and it isn’t watering for that. If you look at your Moisture graph for the week, then at the Table values for each day, you should find how much water it plans on putting down each time (value in inches for Irrigation row). You can look a couple weeks into the future for this. Then the ET (Evapotranspiration) value for each day, if you total them up for a week (they vary some each day), and divide that by the irrigation inches of water, you’ll get the times per week that the system plans on watering, if no rain is received.

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3

Thanks for the response!

I’m using the default settings for each zone… which may or may not be optimal.

I checked the table, and then accidentally pressed the FILL and EMPTY buttons and screwed up the values. Is there a way to go back to the 73% as opposed to now choosing between 0 or 100%?

Is there an API? so I could more easily extract and analyze the data?

I’m also curious, is there a way to directly measure the moisture levels in the soil? Can we just drop in some type of probe? Thanks!

4

FILL and EMPTY only adjust what Rachio thinks about your current soil water levels. Hitting FILL tells Rachio that your soil is saturated, so it will move the dot for today to the top line (100%) and hitting Empty will tell Rachio that your soil is at the allowed depletion level (50% if you left advanced settings at their default values). “Filling” will force Rachio to postpone the next scheduled watering until it thinks the soil again approaches the Allowed Depletion level. “Emptying” will include the zone into the next watering event.

So what you need to do is synchronize Rachio’s internal understanding of the condition of your zone with the reality. This means that you either 1) keep postponing watering until you think your zone needs it and then hit Empty to reset Rachio to the Allowed Depletion level or 2) use Quick Run to manually water the zone until you think it’s saturated. Once you are done watering like that, the soil moisture level should be back to 100%. If it’s not, you can hit FILL to force it to 100%.

5

No there isn’t. It’s been suggested, and is a good idea, but it’s not available at this time.

Yes, but I’ll let others more familiar with it get into that.

There are lots of soil moisture probes on the market, from $5 and up, but most give only very relative readings, and are certainly not accurate. There are professional lines of moisture measuring equipment, and services, but only golf courses and such can afford them.

With Rachio, I think it’s best to “calibrate” the system as beranes suggests, and let Rachio do its thing. Over time, you can fine tune if you think your zones are getting too little or too much water.

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6

I would prefer a proper feedback. Could you please point me to some of these probes and I will investigate. Thanks!!!

7

Sorry my feedback was not proper. As to probes, I’ve bought four, from $15 to $75, and they’re all sitting in the garage as they are of no benefit to me. I suggest you research whatever type of moisture measurement system your would like and evaluate them accordingly.

8

Hello, could you please share the links for what you you purchased. Thanks

9

using the probes, and the Rachio API (once I get some feedback on how this works) I can just setup a proper feedback loop

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10

To my knowledge, there are no probes that interface with Rachio. Nor do any of the probes I’ve purchased, or have knowledge of, even have an output to connect. They are simple 1-10 (or whatever) meters that give a reading of relative moisture, high numbers indicating higher moisture.