Multiple "End Before Sunrise" schedules

I don’t know if I’m missing something or if it should be a feature request but I’m trying to figure out how to maximize my use of “End Before Sunrise”. My grass is divided into 4 zones. 3 of them are flat and one is on a two-way slope. 3 are set up for just timed watering with a custom cycle and soak for the slope part. I would like to have them all finish before sunrise but I can’t figure out how to do that. Am I missing something?

Are you setting each zone up in it’s own schedule? If so, why?

No, I have two schedules – one for 3 zones and one for the front slope. Why, because I only use cycle and soak on the slope and it is manually configured. I would like to be able to stack these two schedules to end before sunrise.

Is there a reason you need to manually configure the soak? I’m 95% certain that you can have mixed zones within a schedule, and Rachio will make the decision if a zone needs a soak, or you can force it by maxing out the zone slope…

It seems to me that I tried it early on and it just didn’t work. It’s a two-say slope (both Sourth to North and West to East) and also, there is no soil setting for my sandy clay. Using the automatic cycle and soak resulted in too much water on the sidewalk or dried out edges. I may try it again when the two week watering suspension expires.

First, you can only have one schedule that ends at sunrise. Second are using flex daily? Set them all up using automatic cycle and soak. Make sure that the one that’s on the slope is first to get watered. That way it will give it plenty of time between cycles. You should not have a problem but if you do go ahead and make it a manual soak cycle and adjust the time accordingly. You can have all sections cycle soak, there is no harm in having the others dot his as well.

Also did you make sure and show that zone as being on a slope? You could also adjust that particular zone differently in advanced settings donut was water shorter durations and more often if that was needed.

How long does that zone run for. If you still want to run them as separate schedules you can set one to after sunset…

Flex schedules are not usable in areas with mandatory restrictions – were already on a fixed 3 day a week schedule here for more than 4 years before being cut to 2 last year and the water district is now issuing citations to violators. TBH, I feel like I’ve been in expermentation mode ever since I installed the Rachio a year ago, because I’ve had to do so much tweaking to get my lawn areas adequately watered. I swapped out a manual Rainbird primarily to get more stations in my main yard and also to use rain skip only to find that some of the other intelligence has proven to be as much hinderance as help.

I tried running the other zones on smart cycle and soak when I installed the Rachio and the result was very unsatisfactory, most areas did not get enough water. I think that’s because my total watering time in those areas is relatively short and splitting up the time meant that there was never enough water actually on the ground to soak. To get the same results in those areas, I would have to water longer…which defeats the purpose. In my situation, C/S is ideal for drip on slopes (I have that too) but not with the grass. For grass, it only works well on the front slope, which has a very steep S–>N and moderate W–>E slope. Even there, letting the controller calculate the cycle didn’t work.

I’m not seeing how to do the other customizations you mentioned: The only way to change the order in which the zones are watered is to rewire the controller and I don’t have the option of customizing C/S for a specific zone (no donut here). I was thinking of setting the start time for the slope to be a bit before the average sunrise time to see whether the actual sunrise program would fill in during the soaks. I’d have still have to modify the program twice a year for DST. We are under a two week ban on sprinkling right now so I’ll have to wait to try that. Most of the summer, it is still quite hot at sunset so I’m not sure sprinkling the front then would be a good idea.

I am happy with my programs, I would just like to chain them to end before sunrise…so I guess it’s a feature request.