OK, purchased a Rachio 3 “SMART” Sprinkler Controller, was looking at how to setup simultaneous zone operation, couldn’t see any options in the app, so I searched google. You can probably imagine the disappointment I had when the google search led me to the forum where I am reading that Simultaneous Zone operation is not available on the Rachio 3 “SMART” Sprinkler Controller. So I’m thinking to myself maybe it’s called something else because surely a “SMART” Sprinkler Controller (as Rachio refers) should have a very simple feature that all of my old “DUMB” Sprinkler Controllers have had, but after further searching the forum and reading posts from 2015 thru Aug 2023 it does not seem to be an option. The interesting part is there have been multiple requests over an 8 year period with what seems to be no movement. It’s really a simple feature to add in the software.
My Two Use Cases:
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My system pumps from our lake, each of the zones are sized fairly well except our drip zone, the drip zone causes high pressure, so we have always ran is Simultaneously with one of the smaller zones in the system. First thing that comes to mind, wire them together, but the drip zone usually doesn’t need to run as long as any other zone during the summer, so it needs to be on its own zone with its own adjustable time.
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Few years back I installed a fertilizer injection system that I decided to add its own valve because it doesn’t need to run each day for the full time of watering, so it was placed on its own zone so it could be adjusted and ran with the other zones as needed. I’ll admit this feature wasn’t as easy to implement with other controllers but I ended up setting up a schedule to run each zone for a short period of time and the fertilizer zone would be timed to be on the whole run time across all of the zones. Once that condensed fertilized watering session was complete, a second schedule would run after to extend the watering time for each zone.
Both cases I was able to accomplish with other “DUMB” residential irrigation controllers
If I am wrong and this option does exist, could someone please point me in the right direction to setup?
If I am correct, I will be very disappointed that such a simple feature that “DUMB” controllers offer is not offered on such a “SMART” controller.
Thank You