Flex initial startup

New user here. Some have expressed a concern regarding the initial amount of water applied when kicking off a Flex schedule at the onset of the watering season. My water is presently off, and the Flex schedule has yet to be enabled. However, the Rachio is on and presumably collecting weather data. Will it still start the season with what may be an inappropriate initial amount of water? Would it possibly be a good idea to allow the first day of operation, a dry run so to speak, with the water supply off?

Flex schedules work off of zone soil moisture level data. If the zones have not been watered through the controller they will essentially be empty, and the schedule will want to water the day after the schedule is built.

The duration that each zone will run is fixed, so will not matter if the system is off or on. The initial amount is just the amount used to fill the bucket so to speak and will be applied each time (no variance).

If you have any other questions just let us know. FYI flex will eventually be superseded by simpler scheduling.

:cheers:

@jemanner, when do you plan on starting up your watering schedule for spring?

As Franz mentioned, Flex schedules will calculate the soil moisture reservoir on a zone by zone basis using the zone attributes selected. Think of this like a water gas tank – the first watering has to fill this gas tank, then it will refill at the MAD (managed allowed depletion) threshold set for each zone. We default to 50%.

If in doubt, it’s usually best to test Flex on one or two zones first, then roll out to other zones after you’re comfortable with the settings and watering times.

Hope this helps. Thanks for your support!

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