When Weather Intelligence (WI) is turned on for a watering time, our system will check the weather report 60 minutes before that watering time is scheduled to run. If it has recently rained or is going to rain soon, it skips that watering time. Our servers get weather reports from our weather service, detailing the amount of rain in the 24 hours before the watering time, and predicting the rain for the 24 hours after. If the total rain is more than a set amount, the watering time is skipped (doesn’t run that time).
So it rained some today, and since we’re in a drought here in CA this seems like a chance to push out my watering by one day. Meaning each and every future watering will be shifted one day into the future. Today is Wed, my next scheduled watering day is Fri. So Weather Intelligence won’t pick up the rain today since today is 48 hours before the next scheduled run.
Ok, I need a manual delay, but I’m not sure how to set it correctly or if it is even possible because the FAQ above seems to be saying a schedule either runs or is skipped, not delayed. What I want to do is insert a 1-day delay, pushing my next watering and all future waterings out by a day. But I’m not sure how to do this. From the wording of the text above my options seem to be
set a “rain delay” of 2 days, enough to cover Friday. Then Friday won’t be delayed (even though the manual FAQ title is “Manually Setup Rain Delay” and not “Manually Skip a Scheduled Run”) but skipped.
change my schedules so the next scheduled runs start a day later
Have I misunderstood this? Is there an easy way to insert a 1 day delay into my schedule?
Hi Mike I don’t have an answer for you but I share in the same arena Im also in Cali except watering on odd days. All I can tell you is to hang tight there is a new software build that will be release very soon and will be addressing a lot of the problems that we are having in the drought stricken state.
What is your current watering schedule? Every 3 days? Every Monday and Friday? I think this would help people understand your watering needs to give you a better answer.
Every 3rd day. What I want to do is push every entry in that schedule out by one day so that I have a one-time 4-day interval right now due to the rain.
I think you have a decent product suggestion. I don’t think there is anyway the current system will accommodate that for you, and honestly from my take, the 2.0 version with probably not do that either at least initially.
When determining whether to water or not, Rachio looks at any rain for the 24 hours preceding the watering plus the rain for the 24 hours following (predicted) the scheduled time. So it looks at a 48-hour rain window really when determining each watering instance.
I have thought of the same thing myself, but in my county we are restricted to watering on set days of the week (Tue, Thur, Sat), so pushing out by a day is not only impractical, it is a violation of local watering laws.
Also, I’d consider that sprinklers have always been around to supplement rain, NOT to replace it. So some waterings via rain are still needed (and appreciated by your plants!) from time to time. This means that if you don’t accommodate for that, that you may be under-watering. In other words, there’s a difference between your plants getting wet every 3 days and your plants BEING SPRINKLED every 3 days in addition to normal rainfall. If my grass only got some kind of water on it every 3 days in the Georgia summer, it would be horrible. But they only need sprinkled twice a week really because of the occasional rainfall. I think Rachio takes that kind of weather information into account when it recommends watering schedules.
@mikeT, thanks for reaching out and sharing your watering needs and expectations. At this time, the Iro does not support changing watering days/frequency. However, this will be a new feature in our 2.0 release, which is in it’s final testing days. Please see Flex schedules for more information.
Correct, we will skip the watering time, not delay it. I’m sorry for any confusion in our phrasing. However, since you’re in CA, I’d recommend you consider adding a IFTTT recipe to your Iro to automate a 48 hour rain delay until we can add this feature to the app. For more information on IFTTT, please see this support article.
@JNotar and @boettcht, you’re both correct. 2.0 will address this scheduling issue
@bwjordan, great point! This is exactly what 2.0’s Flex schedules will do for you. We will monitor and track on a daily basis any effective rainfall, executed irrigation events (i.e. manual runs) and the daily ET to calculate exactly when to water. All you need to tell the Iro is what days you can water on, and we’ll do all the math on the back end to make your lawn the most intelligent on the street. Additionally, we’ll share all of the inputs with you so you can understand why the Iro is making the decisions it’s making.
Hope this helps everyone. Let us know if you have any other questions we can help answer.
