I am in Southern California and we need to water the lawn all year round. However, when it rains, I would like to set a variable rain delay based on the amount of rain and outside temperature.
For example, if it only rains a little bit (maybe less than 0.25") and it’s relatively cool weather (maybe less than 70 degrees), I want a rain delay of 2 days. If it rains a lot (maybe more than 0.75") then I want a rain delay of 7 days. There may be other amounts of rain and delay intervals as well, but this should help explain my overall thought process.
Is this possible? I have accounts on IFTTT and Stringify, if one of those will make it work.
Hi @DaveB-
Unfortunately, there is no way to directly do this through the app or IFTTT. However, what you are describing sounds a lot like our flex scheduling. Have you looked at all into that? It takes a little bit of set up work, but it takes into account tons of different weather data points (including amount of precipitation) as well as all of your zone settings. Here is an article explaining how they work: http://support.rachio.com/article/386-flex-schedule.
If you are interested in that, let me know and we can help get you all set up!
McKynzee
@DaveB – while we cannot setup deterministic rain delay durations by rainfall amounts, you can setup a global rain delay of “X hours” anytime it rains using IFTTT. For details, please refer to this older community post and/or this IFTTT recipe/applet.
I wonder if you have not looked into the Weather Intelligence and/or Flex Daily schedules. These do vary the watering schedule based on how much precipitation has occurred. Believe me, these work wonderfully for me in Orange County. I’m not sure when my grass schedule watered last–the moisture data goes back only 6 days.
I use the rain delay only for compliance with local regulations which themselves are draconianly not dependent on the amount of rain.
this would be a very cool and smart feature. since there is data on how much rain came down and that is being used for moisture level calculation (I assume). it should be able to determine how long to run vs just running too long.
honestly I would have expected the automation “smart” system would be to determine this. wonder if this is something that can go into a request for addition.
@fadynaime This definitely is being logged as a request! I’m a little confused on your request however, are you thinking that your scheduled watering’s duration will be changed based upon how much rain you receive?
I think the request is only needed for fixed schedules, but it could be in two forms: logic 1: based on amount of precipitation, change delay to x days. logic 2 based on amount of precipitation change duration of watering.
logic for 1: if watering is schedule, and precipitation in the last x days was y inches, then add a delay of d days. or it can be, precipitation of y inches occurred, change rain delay to d days.
logic for 2:
I know from my other thread that once created the duration doesn’t change, but isn’t the beauty of a system like this the ability to make these changes on the fly. If scheduled to run and precipitation of .5 inch occurred in the last x days, then (based on moisture and other factors) run sprinklers for x minutes instead of original schedule)
@fadynaime I definitely see the value in both of those ideas! I like the idea of changing the duration, to me it sounds a lot like our flex scheduling but in reverse. Basically in flex the days/frequency you water dynamically change based upon weather while duration of watering stays the same. With this logic you would select the days/frequency you would like to water, and the duration would change.
