I’m very confused on whether my rain sensor is activated or not. Way back on Sept. 24 it was activated, and we had quite a bit of rain during that period. Then on October 4-5 I had a 12 hour power outage. Then on Oct 8, for other reasons I disabled the rain sensor, did a power cycle, then turned the rain sensor back on. That same day I disabled my flex schedules, and enabled my fixed schedules for the overseeding of the lawn. Since then, I’ve gotten no notification of whether the rain sensor is activated or not. I had rain of about an inch on October 10, but none since then. But I’ve never seen any more recordings of activated or deactivated of the rain sensor since that Sept. 24 entry.
Is the rain sensor status not shown if only fixed schedules are active?
I would love to see an indicator somewhere on the main screen of whether that rain sensor is active or not, and not just in the log.
And I may just be confused as I jumped in from the beginning with flex schedules and now am just doing fixed schedules to handle that new seed.
And of course I’m traveling so I can’t visually see what’s really happening to the lawn.
Does your rain sensor have a manual test? That’s usually the best way to see if it is correctly working or not since you will get in-app notifications.
The rain sensor will also preclude flex schedules from running (if activated). You will get an event in the activity feed.
Agreed, this is in our software backlog to show rain sensor state.
I have a Hunter Mini Clik rain sensor. The only way to do a manual test is for to climb up a 16 foot ladder to get to the rain sensor. At my age, I no longer feel safe doing that (and my kids would have my hide!!!)
Yes, I know about the flex schedules and the rain sensor. Just a reminder, but remember I have ONLY worked with flex schedules up until now and have a pretty good understanding of them.
Since I wrote this note, I can see that my rain sensor is functioning, but still cannot tell if Rachio is always recording it correctly. On Sept. 24, the IRO shows the rain sensor was activated. Had lots of rain for days and never see it showing deactivated. I did a Power Cycle on Oct. 8. and had 4 days without rain during that time. It rained again around an inch on Oct. 10. Still nothing recording on the IRO. On Oct. 19 I turned my drip flex schedule back on just to test, and on Oct. 20 it watered, so the IRO obviously did not see the rain sensor as activated. Several days with no rain, and on 10/27 it rained, and the IRO recorded that the Rain sensor was activated. (Also, since 10/26 I have had NO water schedules enabled).
My nearest weather station is over 5 miles away, but since I have been home, and based on the water I’ve seen in my bird bath, the rain amounts are probably close.
So from watching all this, can I assume that the IRO should always show in the Device Updates when the rain sensor activates or deactivates, no matter whether it is set up for fixed or flex schedules to run?
And should I be contacting support about it not recording when the rain sensor is deactivated?
@Linn, good afternoon. Great question. The rain sensor status will record once in your activity feed every time it activates and deactivates. Timing of this notification is dependent on the settings of the rain sensor. Looking at the Hunter Mini Clik user guide, below are some adjustment and troubleshooting tips:
ADJUSTMENTS
TROUBLESHOOTING/MAINTENANCE
Some of these tips require physical inspection of the rain sensor. If that’s not possible, we have a few other options we could try:
You could install a new rain sensor and install the collector on a fence or other easy to access location to troubleshoot if it’s not activating/deactivating correctly.
We could setup an IFTTT recipe to log your rain sensor activity in a stand alone spreadsheet so you could see exactly when it’s active and deactivated without having to dig through your activity feed.
We could bypass the rain sensor completely and trust the weather intelligence of the cloud
Rachio Support is always willing to help, but since this is a sensor operation issue, we’ll need to do some troubleshooting to better determine why the sensor isn’t operating properly. This can be done to a degree via notifications and data, but usually faster and more effective to do a physical inspection.
I hope this helps. Let me know your thoughts moving forward.
Since the ITO records that the Rain Sensor has Activated, I am going to assume that the rain sensor is working. Unfortunately, we have had tons of rain since I asked this question, and I sincerely doubt that the sensor has dried out at all!!!
This is huge overkill to use IFTTT. The rain sensor activity shows up in the Device Updates log, not in the Watering History log, so there is very little to have to dig through. (Since installing the IRO on August 20 there have been only about 20 entries total in the Device Updates log, and the majority of those are the rain sensor).
Perhaps there is better weather intelligence in the cloud in Colorado. My nearest NWS is 10 miles away. I have PWS’s 2.5 miles and 4.3 miles away, but their precipation does not seem to always report. So I have to use a PWS 5.8 miles away. So it could easily rain here and not there and vice versa. And as far as what is forecast, that can be a total crap shoot. I know that you guys (yes, I grew up in Colorado and still say “you guys” after all these years) seem to have a lot of confidence in the forecasting and nearness of Weather Stations, but living in the South I have learned that everything is hit or miss. It can be pouring 2 miles away and I get nothing.
Since I will need to be bringing my IRO inside soon, I probably won’t get to address this issue again until next year.
@Linn, thanks for the update. If you keep the Iro online this winter, we can keep an eye on the rain sensor status to see if it ever dries out. It would be good to troubleshoot this early next season so it doesn’t interfere with your schedules in the event the rain sensor isn’t changing states as expected.
We understand unique microclimates exist and are actively exploring ways to better service these areas. Out of curiosity, is there a PWS in your area that is closer or provides better data? Perhaps on Weather Underground?
Same request here.
That should get a much higher priority in the backlog folks.
I don’t see why this shouldn’t be very simple to implement…just add it to one of the system states:
Online
Standby Mode
Sensor Override (Rain/Freeze)
