This is the 1st season I’ve had my Rachio 3 controller.
Due to our water restrictions we have a watering season from the city that we can only water from April 15th - October 15th
I put my start dates as April 15, 2020 and an end date of October 15, 2020.
Will my rachio water next year in 2021 with the dates I have for 2020, or did I set it up wrong?
Thank you
I was wondering that myself. Our water restrictions are about the same, but that is because the pressurized irrigation water gets shut off. I found the following that seems to indicate they will not run next year. Consequently, I do not have an end date and put the controller in standby right after I winterize it right after the water is shut off.
I’d say no to both. It won’t run and you haven’t set it up wrong. Just need to kick the start / end dates out for 2021 once your season is done (probably when you winterize it).
I like to use the standby as the dates can change in my case and I also turn off the main valve. This keep any accidental turning on of the sprinklers that may cause freezing.
My dates won’t change for the watering season.
Since rachio doesn’t have the option just for months by themselves, then I guess I’ll eliminate the dates all together and just use standby.
Mine has a start date, which may have been when a created the schedule, not 100% sure. No end date exists.
Yes, I changed mine to no end date as well.
I guess I’ll just need to use standby when I winterize my system.
As you know, more than one way exists to take care of this. Probably one way is not necessarily better than another. Thank you for asking about it and giving us the opportunity to try to help. As you notice from the second link I initially included, some have suggested the start & end dates to no include the year so it can handle some of this automatically. However, this has not gained traction.
Part of my winterization routine is to remove the above ground booster pump and just unplug the Rachio3. No need for it to do anything when that which it controls is inoperable.
As I recall, the recommendation is to leave the Rachio plugged in so it can do updates or whatever. Instead, they suggest you put it in Standby mode. Here is some information:
Has the option to not specify year on the start date and end date been implemented?
Not that I have seen yet. 
Actually the year doesn’t need to be removed or ignored. They could just add a checkbox by the dates:
[ ] Annual repeat
For the developers, if you read this:
If the box is checked, when the end date is reached the firmware just advances the start date and end date to the next year.
If the box is not checked, nothing changes. This means when the firmware is updated, this setting will default to Off (unchecked) so everything is backward compatible.
Correct, the checkbox is certainly one way to do it, maybe even better than ignoring the year. The only disadvantage that I can think of is if someone started/ended on a leap day, the next year would change to the 28th or what seems more likely the first . . . maybe not a big deal.
I am (also?) a software developer and tend not to tell others how to design it as I know sometimes it is easier said than done without knowing the inner-workings of the code.
I could imagine some might even want a “Month Repeat” for some water restrictions, but could see issues since all months are not equal length.
Now that I thought of this a little more, there’s a solution that would be tolerable. I could program 12 separate fixed schedules (one for each month). Then, every few months or so, I would just need to change the year on the ones that have passed. This would be a good time to adjust any schedules that need it.
Yes, tolerable, but less than ideal as it requires you to change the dates even when you have no adjustment to make.
I think I would try Flex Daily first. Then, if that fails, plan B would be the fixed schedules.
Costco has the Rachio 3 on sale for $150 through tomorrow and our local water utility is offering a 25% rebate. So that’s like $112.50 for the Rachio 3!
Hmm, the Rain Machine controllers have a “Yearly Recurring” checkbox for Fixed Schedules that will cause the program to repeat every year without any intervention.
Just following up. Has there been any progress on this?