While testing and aiming sprinklers yesterday, I was watching water blow away in even very light wind conditions. (This is partly because I have the throw screw on my rotors cranked down, making more of a mist, but that’s a separate problem) This really drilled in the value of watering during low wind.
Next I pulled up a meteogram. I live in CO, so unfortunately I quickly saw that no two mornings are the same, with random periods of calm & high wind.
It occurs to me Rachio has all the information to automate this. Have the user select a time range (4-8AM, Morning, Afternoon, etc) instead of an exact time.
Then consider sunrise, temperature, and identify the lowest forecasted average wind speed period. For example, if the run will be 100 minutes, find the 100 minute window between 4-8AM with the least total wind. Or for bonus points, try to line up the watering & soaking periods to calm & windy periods.
This is like the “Watering Start Time: Automatic Sunrise Adjustment” request, but expanded in scope considering additional variables.
As with any kind of multi-variable computer decision making, trying to capture the most optimal solution may be complex (model water loss from each variable across window) but the basic feature ought to be pretty straightforward, and allowing the user to constrain the decision range should help minimize the fallout of pathological scenarios.