My Rachio 3 ran multiple zones last night when our weather station was reporting temperatures well before freezing. I saw another post that this may happen if other stations in your area report higher temperatures, but I checked several Wunderground stations nearby, and they also reported sub-freezing temps. I did get a freeze skip the night before, when the weather was even warmer.
Given the liability issue of icy sidewalks and the local penalties for running a sprinkler in freezing weather, this really needs to work. Do I have something set wrong?
The freeze skip FAQ says it checks the temperature 1 hour before running. At T-1 hour my weather station also reported 28 degrees. And it dropped quite a bit before the schedule completed.
Fwiw, if you’re set to water at anything 35°F or below you’re taking a crap shoot in most places due to micro-climate variances. We set skip at 38°F for that reason as it’s not uncommon where I am (central/southern San Joaquin Valley in CA) to see variations ≥ 5° within a block or two anywhere in a 50-mi radius. Five standard residential lots from me up my street either direction easily nets ± 3° every day. If I recall, and I may well be wrong here, that was the default cold skip back when.
My Rachio’s been running with the skip at 38°F for several years now without any problems whatsoever. Really can’t think of a reason to water below that temp given how most plants, turf & otherwise, react to cold anyway.
I get that, but I’m using a weather station literally in my yard. I expect some variation in the yard itself, but I’d be surprised enough to really matter. But if we can’t trust the Rachio to pay attention to the weather station data, it doesn’t help much.
I did get a freeze skip last night. The Rachio reported that it was 34 degrees at the time it made the decision. But the historical data from my weather station says it was 29 at that time. So as far as I can tell it is not using the data from my weather station (integrated via Wunderground) for freeze skip purposes.
Edit: Writing that made me think to check Wunderground’s history for my weather station. It doesn’t match my local history data. So I guess I need to track that down before complaining about Rachio.
Edit 2: I read it wrong–the Wunderground history does in fact match my local history. Or at least it does now.
I had the same issue last night. The entire state was frozen so I don’t know how it could not have known the temps were well below 32F. Lucky for me I woke up early and heard it, so was able to disable it after only 10 mins of running. Did I miss the fix for this?
