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Wind Skip notice - then watered anyway

#1

Twice in the past week, I’ve gotten a notice that a Wind Skip has been applied when I check at bedtime to make sure that the system will not be watering when winds are gusting.

Happily, I go to sleep knowing that the Rachio is automatically choosing not to water and that I don’t need to manually do anything.

I wake up the next morning to find that the full schedule has run as normal.

I have to guess that the system checked the weather again and saw that the winds had decreased… which had nothing to do with the winds at my house - or for the rest of the early morning hours when the system was running.

So, do I have to manually pause the schedule instead of trusting that a Wind Skip notification will really be what happens? Kind of ruins the point of trusting the system.

#2

We do a 12 and 1 hour forecast check on wind speeds. In your case it looks like the forecasted wind changed (at the 12 hour check) from > 10 MPH (your threshold) to something below that. If you would like to skip the schedule (for certain) you can always go to the dashboard and skip it manually. Hope this helps.

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:cheers:

#3

Thanks, Franz… Doesn’t really help? Basically it means that I should always manually skip. I’d like an option that says if a skip is scheduled at any point - the skip can only be canceled manually so that I can safely let things be automatic / unattended. At worst, I miss a watering vs having water sprayed all over the side of the house. :wink:

#4

If the forecast changes to something below your threshold, why would you still want to skip?

:cheers:

#5

Forecasting winds in the mountains is an almost impossible thing because wind is created by mountain downdrafts as well as weather systems and varies all over the terrain. If any wind is forecast at any point, it can be guaranteed to happen even if the forecast drops to relatively calm in the wee hours. If no wind is measured an hour before my 4 to 5 hour schedule, it doesn’t mean the wind won’t pick up again during the schedule. (I’ve never seen my schedule stop in the middle because of wind increasing while watering.)

I would drop my wind speed threshold to 7 MPH if I could, but cannot. Unlike Orbit b-Hyve which lets me choose wind in 1 MPH increments, Rachio only lets me choose 5 MPH increments.

Not sure what I should do other than skip manually?

#6

Interesting, feels very granular but I guess more options is better? :wink: @mckynzee @mitchell Wondering if we have had this request…

With current functionality that is your best option.

:cheers:

#7

Thanks much, Franz. Awesome to receive such instant high-level responses. :slight_smile:

Will manually skip then. The granularity is related to (mountain terrain) gusts. If the forecast is for 7, I’ll expect winds varying from 3 to 10 gusting to 12 for example.

Cheers.