Weather Intelligence - Rain Threshold Adjustment by Schedule/Zone?

I know it’s not possible currently, but wanted to request the ability to adjust the Weather Intelligence rain skip threshold by Zone or Schedule. I’d love to set my grass zones to a much lower threshold and my drips to 0.5"+ because their requirements are much different based on where they are located, how much sun they receive, and of course their individual requirements based on plant type.

Out of my 11 zones, 8 are pop-up sprinklers watering grass, but I have 3 zones I converted to drip irrigation all in raised beds. Of the 3 drip zones 2 are exposed to the sun nearly all day and those are my vegetable garden and another consisting of an evergreen tree and a mix of perennial flowers, the other is all evergreen trees and bushes and faces east and only gets diluted morning sun through a large silver maple.

So with the kind of rain we get in Denver, usually intermittent showers hardly ever above 0.5" at a time, my grass could get enough to skip on a very low threshold setting but it wouldn’t be nearly enough for the plants in my raised beds on drips that are watered less frequently. But for those times like this past week or so when we get much more rain than normal then they have adequate water for at lease one or two skips if set at a 0.5" threshold. But as mentioned prior that’s higher than I’d like to set my grass because it would hardly ever get skipped.

I have the Rachio 3 12 Zone, love what you guys are doing and love that you’re Colorado based as I live in south Denver, have recommended your product several times over. Appreciate any updates on features that are being considered or if any feedback is needed on prioritization. Also I’m a GIS guy so if any mapping related integration/testing is needed feel free to reach out. Thanks!

Just to clarify, I am under the impression that the Rain Skip feature looks ahead to see if rain is predicted, and skips the watering if it is predicted to be over a certain level (0.5 in the example above) that day. Whether it waters on the next day is based on looking back to see how much it actually DID rain the previous day, as that amount of precipitation gets added to the water table. So if it predicted 0.5 and got none, it would water as normal. If it predicted 0.5 and got 2 inches, it would wait until the moisture levels drop to the allowed depletion level. This all assumes you are running Flex Daily.

In other words, I am not sure that being able to set the skip per zone would actually do anything, since that is forward looking (so if rain is predicted on Tuesday, it would still water certain zones on Tuesday?). And the delay in watering is built into the schedules for the flex schedules based on what actually happened.

Fixed schedules may act differently?

Yes you’re correct. I’m requesting the ability to adjust the skip threshold number (rain inches) by zone or schedule. Because if it rains 0.25" (or predicted to rain or has rained that much) that’s enough to disable watering for my grass because it gets all that rain fairly equally distribution wise. However 2 of my planters on drip irrigation (separate zones & schedules also) are right next to my house and garage, therefore they don’t receive the same amount of water from rain since they are partially shielded and they also have much different requirements water-wise than the grass. So it would be more ideal to set them at 0.5 or even 0.75" skip threshold to ensure they get the water they need regularly but also ensure if it comes the occasional downpour where we get an inch of rain that they’ll be skipped in that instance, but not just for the evening shower that may be enough for the grass.

The current model is an “all or nothing”, meaning everything is skipped or not based on a single threshold number you set. And I am not running Flex because everything in my planters is just over a year old so still very sensitive to their watering needs and I’ve got them dialed in to the minute per emitter GPH wise.

So while Flex may be “smarter” and wouldn’t skip my planters in some instances where it skipped grass (assuming from what I’ve read), the ability to adjust skip thresholds by zone or schedule would be invaluable in my situation, as I don’t want to risk my new trees, bushes, and garden not getting adequate water in their formative years when it’s vital, but also would like to conserve water when there’s enough rain to warrant skipping a grass schedule.

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I second this motion! I don’t have raised beds with my drip lines but I do have layers of the most nonporous landscape fabric covering the ground everywhere except the small area where my trees and other plants are located. Unless its a heavy rain, most rain does nothing for my plants along my drip lines. It would definitely be nice to have the rain skip level in the individual zone settings.

Awesome thanks so much Jess!

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