Non-intelligent sprinkler system - change my mind

[tmcgahey]

@ttueric, I went through ALL your posts that you have made since you have been here, and you have never posted a topic asking for help in setting up your yard. Your only topic that you started other than this one was " New Rachio - no plans to water my lawn" in which you initially assumed that Rachio was going to automatically create schedules for you just by plugging the system in. Now, I’m in no way questioning your ability, but do you think there may in fact be a chance that you don’t have your settings quite right?

@ttueric

At the same time, Rachio said the soil moisture in that zone was 95%!!! I ran that zone for 10 mins after that to adjust the throw of the heads and after that it said the moisture was 109% - after only 10 mins. In that time, the heads on that zone (all going about 180-190deg) probably only do about 3-4 full sweeps.

Based on this information, I’m going to assume that you don’t in fact have things set up correctly, since base on your verbiage, I assume you have rotors, and those will most likely have a lower precipitation rate. So…I might suggest (which was suggested in your previous post I believe) to create a post with screen shots of your zone settings (both standard and advanced), and give us some details about the make and model of your sprinklers. If you aren’t interested or willing to do a meter read or catch cup, we can at least try to dial things in with manufacturer settings.

@ttueric

And I’ve shown that the ground is bone dry and the data that Rachio is calculating and using isn’t sufficient.

Sorry to say, but half the data Rachio is using to calculate is user input…it has to know accurate details of your yard to function properly. No way around it.

@ttueric

I have to wonder if a station on my property would help, but again, with it building plans based on what might be, I have no confidence that would make a difference.

Yes, this would help with actual rainfall totals, but doesn’t change the forecasting. But, a properly set up Flex schedule will adjust if the forecast is incorrect. Numerous times I get a notification that a schedule will run/not run due to a change in the forecast. Flex Daily schedules check for weather conditions within the hour before a run and will adjust accordingly.

@ttueric

Also, I recently got notified that due to the seasonal changes it had adjusted my schedules.

So are you on Flex Daily or Flex Monthly schedules? Flex Monthly or Fixed would be the only schedules with seasonal shifts, if you set that up when you created the schedule. Both flex schedules can work very well if set up correctly, but Flex Monthly isn’t nearly as fluid as Flex Daily and is kind of a hybrid between a Flex Daily and Fixed schedule. If you don’t have watering restrictions, I’d always recommend Flex Daily over Monthly.