I’m trying to understand the underpinnings of the Rachio 3 16 zone system I recently installed. I’ve cut over my garden system and plan to get it ‘just right’ before I move over my lawn zones. For me, control through Smart things and Google Assistant were a big selling point. It seems like any command update to my Rachio has to go through the cloud servers which will then poke it into my controller - is that right?
I can run individual zones from ST and Google, but only for 3 minutes. I can’t seem to find a way to run a schedule on demand (to me, a schedule is a sequence of zones and timings). I don’t need any of the intelligent watering features of Rachio, I just need ways to command zone to run for a duration I specify (not just 3 minutes) and for a way to command a schedule to run. Any ideas? Thanks, Dave
I have a zone that I can run longer than 3 minutes using IFTTT (still hard coded within IFTTT, not variable). Not ideal having to use that, but works. What are you trying to do?
One of our gardens consists of 3 zones. I want to run them in sequence for 5 minutes each, and ideally from a voice command.
I stumbled upon a way to run a zone for 10 minutes by using Google Home routines. I was expecting it to run for the hard coded 3 minutes, but rachio notifies me it’ll run for 10! Is there a glitch in rachio so that demanded zones coming in thru certain methods run 10 instead of 3?
Yes, 3 mins, that’s why I was surprised to see 10. I can use this to my advantage as I can trim down the run time in Google routines by idling for n minutes before issuing a stop, which results in a zone run time of 10 - n minutes.
Thanks for the replies, Thomas. I did a short look over the rachio docs and did not see anything else that would help me. I’ll keep looking, but think I have the bare minimum to make this work this summer, between Smart things and Google routines. Dave
I may have to play with Google Routines. Did you find any great tutorials or docs to use Rachio with a routine? I do not have Smart Things (at this time anyway, but not sure that I want to install something else without a good need).
I use smart things to control a bunch of things in the house, lights, locks, window shades, thermostat. Smart things interfaces nicely to Google home so all those items got voice commands as a no-brainer.
I didn’t know Google routines existed until the other day when I started looking for a way to control a number of things in sequence (yep, my sprinkler zones). Prior to this, I defined the rachio to ST, and Google picked up the individual zones which can be turned on (default 3 mins), off, and check status if running. Like most, we only have enough water pressure to run 1 zone at a time.
So, I found out about routines. You can run many things in sequence with it. But, I needed to have a delay between events. A weird little routine named “mister home” can be inserted between sprinkler commands to space them out. “Talk to mister home for 5 minutes” gives the routine a delay, but you might want to mute the Google home speaker while it runs to avoid a clock like ticking sound
That is funny, kind of, to do that delay. I just took a look at the routines on my phone, but did not see how to do it. Maybe I have to look at the display.
I built the routines on my phone with the Google Home app. It first lowers the volume of the speaker where its running so as not to be annoying. Step 2 turns on zone 1. Step 3 causes a delay in the routine of 5 minutes while the zone runs. Step 4 turns off zone 1 (the 10 minute default time is cut to 5 minutes by the combo of steps 3 & 4). Unfortunately the routine’s “send text” function isn’t yet working so I don’t get positive acknowledgment the routine has completed.
