To be very transparent, this is an extremely difficult thing to do in software. Our scheduling algorithms are complex enough, let alone distributed across multiple controllers. We also plan on doing some more sophisticated weather intelligence features across schedules that would make this even more difficult. There would have to be significant domain/database changes, significant server changes, significant client changes across iOS/Android/Web. Along the way user testing, feature testing, etc…and we aren’t building other revenue generating features if we were to focus on this. My estimate for this project is the entire team for 3-4 months, working on nothing else.
When you measure software development costs to the actual number of people that have more than one controller (and that would even use this feature as it’s intended) I’m fairly confident it would take quite some time to recoup those costs, if ever. Can our team build this? Definitely, we have one of the best software teams I’ve worked with. Does it make business sense? Not at this time. I applaud any irrigation company solving the physical --> logical controller problem and wish them the best of luck. We are working on some other amazing hardware and software challenges for next year, stay tuned!
