Hi everyone,
I am pretty new to this Community and to the Rachio system. I just installed it some weeks ago and so far I am super happy with it. The app and generally everything is very polished.
For the moment I dont have a chance to try out any of the many water saving features, cause I dont get the water directly from an unlimited source, the irrigation system can only access a big tank with 3000 liters. Since these 3000 liters are not even enough for a single day, I have to fill it up between waterings and to do so, I abuse one of the Rachio zones, which is connected to a valve that fills the tank and gave it a schedule. So far all works absolutely perfect.
Its just impossible to let the flex daily run on its own, cause it would deplete the 3000 liters quickly and then probably it wouldnt realize that no water is coming.
Secondly, I cant use rain skips, cause the next available weather station is 60km away from me, and its easily a different microclimate over there.
So I have seen that if I switch to flex daily, I get to see some awesome Moisture Level details and forecasts, probably based on info from the connected weather station.
Now to use this and hope for a good result, I would need to have 2 things:
- a reliable weather station
- have all parameters set up very correctly
For nr. 1, I guess I can get a netatmo station with the added modules for wind and rain. If I understood correctly, I could then add my station somehow to some website like wunderground and get the same results as if I chose any other weather station. Please correct me if I am wrong here, then I would not order all that netatmo stuff
Nr 2 is a bit more tricky for someone who has no idea about gardening and its also pretty difficult to get someone with good knowledge in that area (small island in italy). Honestly, I dont even understand all of the words, but that could be helped. The thing is, I am not sure if I want to put a whole garden in danger by having a chance to make all the wrong choices.
So I also ordered the Toro wireless soil sensor and was somehow hoping that I can integrate it and get real soil data instead of the one thats being calculated based on the weather station.
But I dont see how I can make that work.
Basically, my main questions would be:
Can I use the netatmo equipment to receive all the data I need for flex daily and then see all the infos in the Moisture Level details?
And can I maybe use the toro soil sensor to get real and precise data instead of having it calculated by a weather station that could be wrong?
Or wait, one final question, what exactly does the size of the area in the settings of a zone change inside the flex daily?
Cause I guess most of the other settings can be found out, but the areas are sure often overlapping or not, have very different sizes, and probably I would miscalculate them.
Edit: Anyway, I think its a pity that we can only see the Moisture Level details once the Flex is turned on. I would love to see them anyway.