Usage setting

Why cant Rachio allow me to set a day each month that usage reset. My meter is not read until the 6th of the month. I could have 10 hrs (est) of watering overage that is recorded for the month

Your water meter read and your Rachio usage are unrelated. Are you only allowed a certain amount of water in a billing cycle? Rachio usage stats are based solely on a calculation of runtime, area, and precipitation rate. Do you feel you have those settings dialed in well enough to make it reliable?

It’s obnoxious the meter and rachio is unrelated. I want my meter reading date to reset the usage on my meter date. IT dose no good when I have 6 days usual two watering cycle on last month usage. A simple update on the next update.

What I’m trying to get at is why is that important to you to have them sync up? Are you on a restricted gallons per cycle or something?

Again, unless you have all your settings for area and nozzle precipitation rate dialed in to a nats ass (pardon my language), the numbers won’t necessarily match to your water main meter. Rachio water usage is only a calculation, not necessarily ACTUAL water used.

One it not a matter of you understand It. Why are you requiring a long explanation. So why can’t someone request a modification to the system with out these badgering explanation.
Change your tactics this is why others are reluctant to even make request.

Not everyone uses a flow meter and since that’s the only other way to determine how much water is use. How many hours of water is per a monthly run minus rain days those hours very. Why should anyone have to check there hours usage when a simple medication to sync the hours run better.

@Gatekeeper, most of us here are volunteers, not Rachio employees, and are just trying to help. Whether we understand questions or issues, we tend to ask questions to better clarify what people are trying to do as it may alter how we respond. I did not respond at the beginning as I did not understand the what and why. So, I probably would have asked very similar questions. It would seem two watering cycles “added” to the at the beginning of the billing cycle would average out to close to the same as if it were at the end. Obviously, I must be not understanding something here. Certainly, you may request a modification to the system though. It did not sound to me like the initial question was not directed to Rachio and we sometimes can make suggestions if we understand the inquiry fully.

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As @Thomas_Lerman says, people here are asking clarifying questions to better understand your issue so they can offer suggestions. That’s not being derogatory. That’s trying to be helpful. As far as I can see the only one that is being derogatory here @Gatekeeper .

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I have heard the gnat phrase before and never heard it referred as derogatory. As you know, a gnat is a very small insect usually between 1/8" & 1/4". When someone refers to dialing in or measuring by a gnat, that is an extremely small & precise measurement, like 1/1000 or 1/10000 of an inch. It is not calling someone a name. I therefore do not think that he meant it in a derogatory way and apologize that you took it that way. That is the difficulty with written text that it is difficult to hear tones, see facial expressions, and completely understand one another.

To try to answer your last question of, “how are you determined your watering cycle skipped”?: I usually find that in one or more ways, of which I am listing a couple below:

  1. When I look at my irrigation calendar view, I see, for example, when the grass is watered in a green icon. When it is skipped, I see an orange icon with the water droplet crossed out.
  2. On my home view, it lists the number of “weather intelligence skips” followed by actual & scheduled usage times. The difference between those two times is the time skipped.

Part of the confusion, no doubt, is that I doubt anyone here has heard of watering being limited by time in hours (other than what hours are available to water). Most monthly or weekly limitations are by gallons or cubic feet of water used. Irrigation systems vary quite a lot, and an hour’s water usage at my house will be quite a bit different than at other locations.

Without a flow meter, Rachio has no knowledge of the amount of water used. As tmcgahey tried to explain (in a non-derogatory manner) is that only by having set the advanced settings extremely closely (to a “gnat’s ass” - NOT a derogatory term), can flows provided by Rachio mean anything.

If you /really/ want the time the system was irrigating, this information is in the History tab, although you’ll have to add them up manually.

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Thanks for actually review your usage before. This is a hard situation to explain. Its my understanding that the droplet will only appear on the calendar after it runs for three mins. It will not indicate and skips in your run cycle.

Now as for the home view , the weather intelligence is only active it you use a PWS location that reports those setting. The PWS are useless they are not maintain and don’t supply rain amounts. The Time Use shows the full amount time your irrigation ran for the month.

So example, if your system is schedule to run 2hr, twice a week, then the time use without interruption for a for a month should read 16 hrs. usage, buy since the resets on the first you would be over or under usage rate for the month. that simple reading would indicate a skip in your watering cycle. the actual time and the scheduled time was not matching indicates to had a skip in only the last run cycle.

I my case I use fix schedule and a added another cycle to use on a manual start cycle. checking my skip I found out that the regularly schedule cycle I use had been interrupted. Some how the setting got change for a regular 3.5 hrs to 18 mins. that a big change that would have killed my grass. If your away for some time you could have to replace your lawn.

Rachio needs to allow us to manual set a time usage day to reset on a date closer to the meter reading date, not the fix 1st date. why should I have to always recalculate from the 6th to 31st is 12hrs and 1st to the 6th 4 hrs. then discover I had a skip in the month

its a simple solution to a simple problem but others want to insult with the little derogatory slams for no reason (Nat ass) is derogatory refer my concern is minuet in nature. Not concerning enough to be bother with!. So when dose one get to decide what concerns others. Power user are no smarter then anyone else here, nor do they have any special ability, (Rachio need to remove that power user label) If you don’t have a solution to a question then skip it, derogatory comments and slams are insulting and no place here or anywhere. Everyone question need to be a concern and one simple question could solve a bigger issue later.

Unless you have a flow meter attached to you irrigation which most don’t , you never know how much water you are using. Read your meter before and after a cycle run, you might be surprised at the amount use. So if you 2k gals every cycle it should not change unless you had a skip. Know your gals use you run in a month is the same as know your hrs time use monthly.

Maybe it depends on the type of schedule you are running. I do, in fact, see the “droplet” icon in my calendar in the future. I also see where I have weather skips shown in the past where something was schedule, but did not run because it was skipped.

If you are willing to share, what area do you live within? My area, Western USA, seems to be rather accurate with the weather intelligence probably due to the reported rain, wind, and temperature reporting of weather stations in my area.

You are correct and nobody has given any indication than that. Rachio just recognizes people that they trust to be answering questions helping them where they cannot answer every question.

I live in central Florida. Weather station here are far from Accurate, I use a fix schedule. I would never use a flex schedule again. No flow meter just city meters.

You are right the droplet on the calendar are schedule setting. There no indication of a skip or interference with a cycle run with exception of a rain drop indicator.

Like I said early most ppl don’t have flow meters. So once you know your gals use per cycle Vs time run per cycle. Could be easy determine. Any skip in the month watering. But because the 1st reset skews that.

Exp 2k gals per cycle and it takes 2 hrs to run a cycle 2hr times 10 monthly cycle equals 20 hrs or 20k gals used. Now it read 17 hrs you have a skip. You need to check it out. Check the history to zero in the the day skip and why. Rain, power failure or cycle error. Like I had a normal 3.5 run to a 18min is a yard killer. Luckily I was home when it happen

No, but most all of us have water meters. Which can be read while doing a test on a zone, which I have many others have done. Other than a flow meter, the only accurate way to determine how much water is used.

But we don’t know the gallons used per cycle. Not without measuring the actual water used, with, say, a flow meter or water meter. Even calculating water used based on the zone’s Area and Nozzle Inches per Hour, can’t be accurate without first measuring flow (and area).

First of all, I’m Troy, not Tony…Hi!

Also, not sure how you take that as a derogatory comment, but ok, I’ll take note of that…thanks @Thomas_Lerman for linking the definition of a gnats ass (I spelled it wrong in my original post :crazy_face:).

Rachio doesn’t have the ability to change your usage cycle, so I was trying to understand WHY you were wanting to do that, so that maybe myself, or someone else could come up with an alternative for your needs. You want to take it as badgering, fine.

At the end of this, I’m still thinking Rachio does what you are wanting it to do. When you see the home screen, do you not see the “time saved” under the Usage? While it may not exactly coincide with your meter reading, it would tell you if there was a skip, which at the end is what you are trying to do, no?

I’m locking this thread as the discussion has become heated and is not productive.

But for other folks who have a similar request and are looking for a solution and happen upon this thread it might help to know that you can download your daily historical usage on the web app by going to https://app.rach.io/ - selecting your controller - at the bottom of your home screen you can see usage, select the download option.

This will give you a daily breakdown of your historical usage going back 1 year. Hopefully, your water company offers a similar download of your daily water meter usage and you can compare the two in a spreadsheet.

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