I have a schedule that is called Spring Flex.
Flex Daily
Start after Sunset
Smart Cycle
Freeze skip and wind skip.
Should I make any changes?
Should I have several different schedules for different seasons?
I had several disabled schedules. they all received a seasonal change today.
Do Flex get seasonal changes?
Flex daily uses real time weather. I call it the anti schedule as it does not run until necessary. It doesn’t have the concept of seasonal shifts since it is actually shifting each day based on weather.
It’s not for everyone since it’s so dynamic, but if you get it dialed in for your yard it’s typically the most efficient watering. I usually recommend setting one or two zones on flex daily and the rest on a fixed schedule and see which you prefer more.
Hope this helps.
I have never understood why Flex Daily is considered harder to “dial in” than other schedule types. Each schedule type will initially use the same Advanced settings (even if just the normal settings are set) to determine the frequency, and in particular, the amount of water placed on a zone during a given week. IMHO, if the Crop Coefficient is low by 20% (due to improper crop selection or whatever), the lawn will probably be underwatered and begin having problems. With any schedule.
In fact, I would think that Flex Daily would be /easier/ to dial in, because it’s using ACTUAL weather conditions, rather than AVERAGE. Setting up Flex Monthly during unusually high or low temperatures would, I think, be problematic, while Flex Daily adjusts for that.
In summary, again IMHO, all the schedule types use all the same exact factors, most of which are exposed in the zone’s Advanced settings. So why is Flex Daily considered harder to “dial in”?
Franz, thank you. I was kind of assuming that might be the case. I am on my 2nd season with the Rachio controller. I changed to flex late last year. So if I have an area that seems to need a little more. What is the best practice? Extra schedule?
On a side not I am a Realtor in Denver and I have a client that is going to need a sprinkler controller. With all of the crazy shortages on supplies. Do you have controllers in inventory or is there a wait?
Love my Rachio!!!
However, while Flex Daily will auto-adjust based on local(?) daily ET, the Kc will not auto-adjust to (local) seasonal change. So depending one one’s level of garden nerdiness/anal-retentiveness/water-bill-sensitivity, this still needs to be done manually.
I would either bump up minutes, or if you want more frequency adjust crop coefficient by 5-15%. You can see the frequency change immediately on the watering graph.
Ha thanks! Currently no wait, feel free to give them as house warming gifts!
Don’t joke like this unless you really mean it 
Generally due to having to understand more than just increasing or decreasing minutes. When we start talking about ET, crop coefficients, root zone depth, and having folks adjust those, we aren’t doing a great job of solving problems, maybe just confusing people.
@rraisley I don’t think I’ve met you. Thank you for being a power user. Very much appreciate your feedback and contributions!
Ironically, this was in the software about three years ago. We removed it when we allowed folks to modify crop coefficients. Not great planning on our part.
I totally understand and appreciate how insanely complex this is since Rachio doesn’t know what weird combinations of plants are in a zone. I have a zone that’s a few shrubs and a couple of avocado trees. Avocado trees are sensitive to watering, so in this case I’d want Kc/ET dialed in very precisely to their needs based on local conditions. Another zone is a weird combination of shrubs and perennials where I don’t really care about seasonal adjustments as much and can go with gross averages. Another is roses only, so this one would be preferably tuned to roses’ Kc rather some shrub average, but local adjustments aren’t really that important.
