Frustrated - Don't Know What to Do and No Time to Learn

I sent this email to support:

"Is there any way that I can get some help in adjusting my watering schedule and run times? The drip line has been adjusted to run for every 4 days for almost 3 hours (159 minutes)!!!

I am located in Apollo Beach, Fl 33572 (Tampa Bay Area.) This zone has a mixture of Palm trees and shrubs and mostly in Full Sun. Also look at the other zones. The other zones are mainly bermuda grass. The Right Lawn zone now has a mixture of palm trees and bermuda grass. The Zone labeled “new plants” is what I did to give more water to new sod and palm trees that were planted in July 2015. I am thinking that I do not need this zone now, the plants and palm trees should be established by now. I have personal weather station in my rear yard, so the rain reports are reliable. I don’t understand the Flex Scheduling system. Appears to be way to complicated and I am way to busy to research it thoroughly."

Rachio Support replied "Rachio here, thanks for reaching out.

If you feel that your watering times are too long you can certainly lower them as you wish. See our How do I edit a Fixed Schedule? article for details on how to do this. If you think you may not need to water these zones for now you can simply uncheck them in your schedule. If you wish to re-add them later you can always check them on again.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any further questions."

I went back and forth with support for a couple of days - Now, I am ready to throw in the towel. The answers I got from support lead to more frustration.

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@argus, I just reviewed your account. Looks like you’re currently setup on Fixed schedules, not Flex schedules. Which explains what you’re getting a Water Budgeting update (only available on Fixed Schedules).

Flex schedules work best when the zone is setup unique to the vegetation it’s watering – i.e. Zone 1 is only trees, and Zone 2 is only turf. We’ll have to play around with the advanced settings to adjust for what I call a “mixed” zone.

Moving forward, it might be easier if you summarize what you’d like to accomplish using Flex schedules – then I can review your setup and see if it’s possible and/or what changes we need to make.

Hope this helps.

Best, Emil

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I am not sure of what you asking me. I am simply looking for a solution that will provide the right amount of water to my lawn without me having to monitor it very much. What am I missing? Now I feel very dense, not knowing how to answer the question “what would I like to accomplish using Flex schedules?”

@argus, sorry for any misunderstanding in my last reply. I believe our intentions are getting crossed.

Let’s set back and review your account configuration:

You have 5 zones; 1 drip and 4 turf zones. Could you confirm which zone you’re referring to in this statement:

Flex schedules are highly dependent on the data provided on a zone by zone basis. Anytime there’s a zone that’s “mixed” i.e. trees and lawn, the watering time will usually either be too long or too short for one of the vegetations you’re trying to water. I’d like to have a better understanding of the ratio of Palm trees to shrubs (and what type of shrubs) so we can fine tune some variables on this zone for you.

Next, we just need to create a Flex schedule and disable your Fixed schedules (the schedules cannot be converted from one type to another) I’d be happy to assist you with this process. For FAQs on the different types of schedules, here’s a support article to reference.

Please let me know a bit more about your drip line and we can get a Flex schedule setup for you to review.

Best, Emil

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I’m having the same issue I just disabled my system because my backyard was turning into a swamp. I purchased this unit as a plug-and-play device that would save me money I think I was just fine with my old Rainbird system and a rain sensor I used a lot less water when I was running that controller. I’m sure there are settings that I can change but I really don’t want to spend all the time it takes to research and make this happen. I don’t know if my yard should be watered every 2 days or 5 days. I fix cars for a living I purchased this device because according to their advertising it automatically gives your yard the right amount of water as needed.

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@ronogg, I’m sorry to hear you’re running into the same issues with your Flex schedules. We never like to hear of the Iro using more water than it needs to.

Just curious, did you complete the zone setup process by answering 5 questions for each of your zones? The Iro needs to know the vegetation you’re watering, soil type, solar exposure, nozzle type and slope in order to recommend proper watering times for each of your zones. Sometimes the recommended watering times might be longer than you previously watered – this is usually due to either 1) the root zone depth of the default vegetation setting versus your actual root zone depth, or 2) the precip rate of the default nozzle setting might be incorrect. The good news, these are both easy to change and I’d be happy to help you review your zones if you’re up for spending some time doing so :smile:

We understand and are here to help. We’re learning every day about way to make the zone & scheduling process easier and less daunting. The Iro crunches countless data points in it’s attempt to recommend the best watering schedule possible for your lawn. Unfortunately, if some of these data points are wrong, it’s reflected in the schedule generated. If we think about it from the auto industry, the Iro out of the box is like a brand new tire (minus the new tire smell) and although it could be mounted on a wheel and installed on your car, it rides much better with a quick balancing otherwise vibrations will likely exist.

Please remember, if we cannot setup your watering schedules to your preference, we will stand behind the product if you wish to return it.

Let me know how I can help with configuring your zones and/or schedules. I like to nerd out on watering times :wink:

yes I did answer the questions… i even went as far as creating some nozzles to try and get it to stop watering so much. The exact soil that i have is not listed i believe I have Clay loam… Feel free to change any of my settings… my back yard uses rain-bird i believe they are called rotary heads. and my front yard uses smaller fixed heads I can send you pictures of the spray nozzles in action if this will help since I do not know all the details about them. I guessed at my root depth. my yard is just over one year old. before this I had a hunter and then I upgraded to an irrigation caddy. I purchased this unit because I have a home automation system that is controlled by Nexia and they offered integration with your controller. ( i am not to happy with the integration) all you can do is start and stop the controller.

I am in need of this… thanks for the offer… what information do you need from me?

@ronogg

I would be willing to help also. First off, are you set on using Flex Daily Schedules? The new update that was recently released has some other scheduling options that may suit your needs better. You could try creating a Flexible Monthly Schedule. This will adjust based on historical monthly weather data from your local climate. You can also enable Smart watering features which will skip waterings based on the weather conditions.

If you click on my name you should be able to send me a Personal Message.

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