Updates to "As Needed"?

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I know you’ve asked that folks give the As Needed schedules a shot, and that you’re listening to all of the feedback, and that there are plans for stuff next year (at least in terms of the GUI).

I was curious if any changes would be made to the “As Needed” schedules (like how they run) in the near-term, or will they likely be pretty much “as-is” for the rest of this season?

For example, if folks setup individual As Needed schedules for each zone (to avoid the situation where a single As Needed schedule with multiple zones will water all zones if just one of the zones needs watering), if a day calls for multiple zones to run, the amount of time to complete all of the schedules will take longer to finish because nothing gets watered (in another zone) while the zone being watered pauses (for 30 minutes, in my case) for a soak cycle.

For my needs (one one which involve finishing watering early enough that the dogs can go out in the morning and not get soaked in their never-ending quest to “eat” all of the water that the sprinklers shoot out), that’s a concern because even if I start my As Needed schedules at 3:00AM, they show often to still be watering after 9:00AM. My Flex schedule usually had all zones done before 6:00AM at the latest, often much earlier. Also, my lawn is relatively new (was sod last summer), so I’d really like to get the most out training it not to be lazy (something that didn’t happen last year with my Hunter controller and it’s awesome (not) scheduling abilities). :slight_smile: Seems like watering zones early doesn’t help in that regards.

All of this makes me a little wary about sticking with the As Needed schedules. I’ve switched back to the Flex for the time being. If feel like a dick for bailing so early on them, but those two issues are both important to me.

Any chance the As Needed logic will get some tuning/options this season, or will it remain static, with changes coming next season?

Thanks for listening to the community. As slightly frustrated as I am with how the As Needed works (for me, anyway) today, I’m continually impressed with the engagement here.

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I hear ya, I’m going to try it as I m a data guy. My metric will be how much headway g I have to throw this year.

I know one thing, I feel sorry for the rachio guys. I know they worked their asses off for this release to ensure they didn’t drain every water resivoir and wallet dry with a bug and a few cosmetic things have slipped through. but I feel there is a silent majority that appreciates the as needed feature. I personally didn’t know at least 6 users that posted enjoyed the flex schedule as much as I did.

So I think we are going to be riding this one for a bit. @franz put up a web app that allows you to recreate the flex schedules so there is that alternative for now but I first have to concretely justify why I went back because for now all I have is hyperbole.

God speed