…Rachio sends me a Seasonal Shift message announcing that September would get less water than August. This is not clever. At the time I received the message, I was at the property hand-watering bushes to prevent them from dying. We’re in the middle of a heat wave.
In fact, Rachio sent a notice back on on August 1 that a seasonal shift was being applied, because August was supposedly cooler. Um, no. My expensive landscaping wilted. I counteracted the seasonal shift.
I love Rachio, the design is intelligent, the hardware is well built. But I’m deactivating all climate shifts and seasonal changes and other automatic adjustments. Yes, I will use more water, but my landscape will survive. I’ll remember to reduce watering in the winter and increase it in the spring.
Bottom line: The theory of Seasonal Shifts etc is good. But applying it on the hottest day of the year, during a heat wave, is stupid. Rachio needs to build more granularity into its weather algorithms, and take heatwaves etc. into account. I’m sure that the weather station I am connected to told Rachio that the temperatures here have exceeded 100 degrees F