It would be a great feature if Rachio would take a smarter approach to skipping waterings.
For example, say I have a weekly watering schedule, and Rachio waters my garden every Sunday, for 70 minutes.
If it rains sufficiently on Saturday, currently, Rachio will skip the Sunday watering.
But, what if it rained on Monday? Rachio will usually skip the Sunday watering, despite the fact that it’s been dry for 6 days. This results in 13 days of non-watering!
This can be easily fixed in either of 2 ways:
Change the watering day.
Every time there is a sufficient amount of rainfall, THAT DAY will become the new watering day for Rachio. E.g., Monday would become the new weekly watering day. Easy!
Keep the same watering day, but adjust the watering duration.
If it rained on Monday, then Rachio can keep the upcoming Sunday watering day unchanged, but adjust the watering duration (e.g., if it’s been dry for 6 days, then only water 60 minutes instead of 70). Easy!
Hey @dimitri!
I definitely understand what you mean! When you say 13 days of non-watering, are you saying the anticipated rain on Monday doesn’t occur? Or it just isn’t enough?
For now, you have a couple options that will help. One option is to raise the threshold of your rain skip. When you do that, it won’t skip quite as often, preventing that long time with no watering.
I will say, however, that it sounds like it may be time for you to switch to a flex schedule. From what I can tell, the day of the week you water isn’t a restriction for you. So with flex, “skips” really just turn into “pushes.” I’m not doing a great job explaining, this article should help: http://support.rachio.com/article/382-flex-schedule-faq. If that sounds interesting to you, let me know and I can give you more details and help you switch over!
McKynzee
Thanks for responding. I live in San Francisco, and the closest weather station is 8 miles south (which might as well be 100 miles, given the SF bay rea’s micro-climates).
So, long story short: I don’t trust your flex schedule. I barely trust your fixed schedule (it’s failed me more than once). It’s not your fault, mind you: Rachio is only as good as the precipitation metrics it receives.
Ahhhh I understand, that is not ideal for sure. We are in Colorado so I can definitely understand the microclimate issue. I definitely will get your recommendation to the team, not having a good weather station is really a difficult road block and discovering ways to improve that scenario is important.
