Flex, Soil Sensor, Rain Sensor and Moisture Levels

[franz]

@breaker

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.

w00t!

@breaker

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.

Have you thought about installing your own PWS? It’s very gratifying

@breaker

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

Netatmo is the easier route since it is natively integrated with pwsweather.com. (which is our current PWS provider, exploring other option for next year )

If you want to get an Ambient or AcuRite you will need to post the data to pwsweather.com through either a bridge

Using WUnderground.com to integrate Personal Weather Stations

I currently have a PWS (Personal Weather Station) running on my house (AcuRite 5in1 with internet bridge: http://bit.ly/1l2o813 ), which transmits data to the weather underground. My Station is at: http://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KCABREA6 My PWS tracks rain fall which would be awesome to be able to delay my sprinklers based on the rainfall collected by my PWS. This would be useful for people that doent have a PWS too, since they might find a nearby neighbor t…

…or a program like this

http://support.rachio.com/article/249-connecting-weatherunderground-using-weathersnoop

@breaker

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.[/quote]

Our flexible monthly schedule might be a better choice for you. It adjusts the schedule each month and is on a fixed interval so there is no question as to when it will run next.

@breaker

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.

I think this is the same as a rain sensor…? More information

My experience with Toro Soil sensor and Iro

@breaker

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?

Yes.[quote=“breaker, post:1, topic:6218”]
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?

No, pretty sure the sensor communicates either water or don’t water. It does not broadcast actual moisture levels.

@breaker

Or wait, one final question, what exactly does the size of the area in the settings of a zone change inside the flex daily?

Nothing, this is just used for estimating water usage on our reports.

I would recommend if you want to try flex daily to post questions regarding your configuration, your soil moisture graphs, and we have a lot of members of the community that could help dial them in. Flex monthly is also a nice way to get a lot of our efficiency without spending much time on zone configuration, etc.