Hi McKynzee, your concern is very valid. I too am a system designer and often have to choose whether to expose the full capability of the system or to constrain the interface to prevent users from hurting themselves.
A proper implementation of this feature would be very beneficial in supporting more efficient heads sprinkler heads and watering times/periods recommended for the common lawn. One of Rachio’s main selling points is the conservation of water and supporting users to retrofit their systems with the higher water-efficiency of the MP rotors would be in line with your mission. Doing so in a way that allows running a full ~6 zone cycle in less than 3 hours would enable early morning watering as recommended—for me the reason that this became noticeable is that I had to advance the start of my water cycle to 4 AM so that it would finish by ~9 AM.
Anyway, I see these possibilities:
- For users that have a flow meter, the system could be smart enough to detect how many zones it can open while staying below some flow-rate threshold that is known to happen at an appropriate pressure. Probably very few users have flow meters, but I like to explore all options.
- For users who create custom sprinkler heads with low irrigation rates (as the MP rotors), offer the “Advanced” possibility of grouping multiple zones together, and present very explicit warning about doing this. Such warning could include a full setup walkthrough that informs the user of the risk of losing pressure, forces her to run an actual test and confirm that the sprinkler heads in the grouped zones operate as expected before enabling the grouped zones. In other words, the App/website would not let you exit the setup window/popup before the user confirms that the group is actually working.
I hope this helps,
+R