The Daily Flex schedule does look at the actual weather not just the predicted weather. You need to look at the zone moisture data to understand why Rachio is or is not scheduling a zone to be watered. To use Daily Schedules effectively you also need to spend some time learning about this type of a schedule. Your other option is to keep your Flex Monthly schedule but increase the watering time for the zones that you think are not getting enough water.
Where can I learn about this type of schedule?
Here’s a link to an faq
1 Like
Also take a look at the moisture level for each zone. Rachio will not schedule a zone to be watered until the moisture level drops to 50%. Go to zones then select I think moisture then select more detail.
Yep, I’m digging into this. Didn’t realize changing the schedule type would open up more info on each zone. I see that it says the moisture level is 110% which would explain why it isn’t going to water for a few days. How does it determine that?
Take a look at the link to the thread below. But if you think the grass needs more water and Rachio says the moisture level is 110% I am going to guess that the variables are not set to what is really happening.
Wow, I had no idea. The descriptions in the app are a bit misleading about the differences between “Daily” and “Monthly”. I’ll have to do a lot more research to really get all this info tweaked. It “just worked” for several years and I was thrilled. Now it appears to be failing badly with adjustments and I’m finding it worse than a simple timer.
What I don’t understand is that, in addition to setting up all this detailed information about each zone, you also have to tell it how long to water each area and when it starts. With all the advanced info we’ve already provided on each zone, that seems highly redundant/contradictory. Shouldn’t it already know how long to do each zone and what time is best to start? Or at least offer a recommendation you can default to?
1 Like
@Linn explained what has probably happened and if your zone moisture level is 110% but you think the grass isn’t getting enough water then you probably don’t have the variables set correctly. Why don’t you just keep your existing Flex Monthly schedule but increase the time for the zones that aren’t getting enough water.
You don’t have to tell it how long to water each zone. In fact, doing so will pretty much defeat all its calculations; you’re saying, in effect, that you know better how much to water. Now, you may, but give Rachio’s calculations a chance first.
If a zone currently says it’s at 110% Moisture Level, then Rachio has probably recorded recent rainfall that would make it that. It’s nice to start out knowing your zones are full, because Rachio doesn’t have to “catch up” to fill your zones.
Using Flex Daily, make sure you enter your soil and crop/lawn type. Even then, you may want to check out the variables that Rachio assigns, in the Advanced screen, possibly bouncing what you have off users here to get suggestions. Rachio will calculate two things, basically: How much water, in inches, should be applied to your lawn to reach the set Allowed Depletion (usually 50% for lawns, unless you change it). It calculates this by multiplying the Available Water x Root Depth x Allowed Depletion. For values of 0.17, 6" and 50% that would give 0.17 x 6 x 0.50 = 0.51", the amount of water Rachio will water EVERY TIME it needs to fill your lawn (it will water less if you’ve had rain, and figures that in). It also uses the Crop Coefficient to calculate its ET (Crop Evapotranspiration), or water used by your lawn per day. This varies with temperature and other conditions.
Using those two values, Rachio will normally water when it gets close to the 50% value, which increases it close to 80%-100%, then waits days until it gets close to 50% again.
IMHO, that all works really well. However - Rachio also needs what it calls the Nozzle Inches per Hour for your zones. That’s the amount of water that would be applied if the sprinklers in your zone would water for one hour. I don’t think Rachio’s guesses for these are very good, and recommend calculating this value, either by catch cups (most accurate) or from area watered and gallons used. You can start watering using their default, and lacking anything else that’s pretty much what you have to do. But it’s best to calculate the values. You can also change the Nozzle Inches per Hour: lowering the number will water MORE per week, while raising it will water Less per week (while watering each time, in this example, stays 0.51"). I dislike doing this, but until you have a better value, it does make sense.
On the actual rainfall versus predicted rainfall, Rachio will /always/ use the actual rainfall to decide when to water. It may also use the predicted rainfall, to decide whether to water the next day or not. But if the prediction is wrong, then you’ll no doubt see it water the following day, to make up for that.
I’m super confused then because it literally requires you to set this up when creating any type of schedule. It takes you through the watering times page on every app (Android, IOS and web) and doesn’t have an option to skip or reset or use a recommendation. There is also no option for “dynamic” so is it using these values or not?
The variables that need to be set up are in the Zones page not the schedule page. Go to Zones and then select Edit and you will see the variables. See screen shot #1 At the bottom select Advanced and there are more variables See screen shot #2
The watering times that you see ARE the recommendations. There are also + and - buttons so you can change the recommendation if you want to.
I understanding this, but it feels like we’re talking across one another. The timing page is a REQUIREMENT when creating a new schedule. It cannot be avoided or skipped. The data is there. What you go back in to edit later is a completely different situation and doesn’t change the fact that you’ve already configured watering times when you first created the schedule. As far as I can tell, this is unavoidable.
How do you get back to recommendations if you’ve changed something? This feels like a failure in UI design. Do the watering times automatically change themselves if you muck with other zone settings? That is not at all obvious.
Those values ARE Rachio’s calculated times for each zone, based on the information you’ve given them for each zone. They show them to you, without any notation (a mistake, IMHO), giving you the impression that you have control. And you do, but then why spend time inputting all values to calculate the times.
You can test this: Pick one zone, like Front Left, and note it’s being watered 27 minutes. Go into this zone’s properties, and change a value that will change how much water is applied at one time (that’s the Soil Available Water, say 0.17", the Root Depth, say 8", and the Allowed Depletion, say 50%). Let’s say change the root depth to one half the current value, in this case 4". Rachio will then water that zone AT ONE TIME half of what it did before. If you then go to view the Schedule, Hit F5 on a PC to Refresh the calculations (probably not necessary, but sometimes it appears to be), I think you will find that the time for Front Left has changed to about 13-14 minutes (half of what it was). Make sure you change it back after the test!
Anyhow, I really don’t advise ever changing the times for the zones, except for Fixed schedules, which you DO have to come up with values for. If you somehow know a time is not correct, try to find out what’s making it that way, don’t just change it. That’s just my $0.02.
Oh, and I agree, to make it less confusing, there should be a note on Flex scheduling times that say “All times have been calculated based on each zone’s actual conditions”, and there should be a Reset button, to get them back there.
Okay, so watering times change automatically if you change zone settings. That is a failure in UI design. It is not at all obvious that changing values buried deep in one page will change values in a separate page, even if you’ve manually adjusted those time settings. Effectively, changing zone settings will override and reset timings back to their recommendation. Thank you for all the info, it has been most enlightening!
The watering times are recommendations based on the value sin the variables. When you create a schedule you can increase or decrease the watering time. You don’t have to accept the recommendation. Once you have saved a schedule you can easily increase or decrease the watering time. In the Android app Go to Calendar, then select Schedules and then select the schedule you want to modify. In the web just select Schedules from the left hand.
Sorry but I don’t think this is a failure of the UI.
The failure is in not clearly stating anywhere in the app how those two separate pages interact with one another. Even in you comment, the question remains: if I “easily increase or decrease the watering times” how would I revert that back to the recommendation afterwards?
No that provides the smarts of the system. Without those variables Rachio would just be another dumb controller. And Rachio walks you through those settings when you first install it. Perhaps you’ve forgotten what you did when you set it up.
Well you could write down what the initial recommendation was so you could revert back to it or you could delete the schedule and start again and if you didn’t change anything you would get the same recommendation.