Updated Scheduling for Smart Hose Timer

If you’re using a Rachio Smart Hose Timer to water your yard, some exciting feature updates just dropped that will make your system even smarter! As requested by customers, you can now add multiple valves to schedules! New Smart Soak feature helps reduce runoff and prevent overwatering. New Sunrise/Sunset options make it easier for scheduling to automatically sync with your lifestyle. Rachio now automatically arranges Sunrise/Sunset in a way that prevents schedule conflicts, water pressure issues, and scheduling complications. New option to schedule yearly start/end dates will serve customers who have annual repeating scheduling needs.

Run schedules on multiple valves

• Many customers water similar spaces with multiple valves – these could be raised beds, veggie gardens, or surface-watered lawns. You can now save setup time by running multiple valves on the same schedule. Additional valves can be added to any existing schedules using the edit button.
• If you want to add more Smart Hose Timers to your yard, you can purchase additional valves here. Tip: You can use a hose splitter to run multiple valves off of a single water faucet.

Make irrigation fit your lifestyle with Sunrise/Sunset schedules

• You now have more choices for when your valves run. Set schedules to run at any specific time of the day or program them to run before sunrise or after sunset. Plus, you can now add time offsets to water a certain amount of time before or after sunrise (for example, end watering 30 minutes before sunrise).
• Use these popular scheduling options to help watering fit your daily routine.
• Tip: We like to use before-sunrise watering to get the spraying done before morning walkers start strolling the sidewalks, and run garden drip lines 2 hours after sunset so we don’t reduce water pressure while doing evening dishes, showers etc.

Let Rachio automate your Sunrise and Sunset watering

• Rachio now offers schedule stacking for our Smart Hose Timer for increased automated performance! Simply select sunrise or sunset start/end times for your schedules and Rachio will stack all these schedules so they run in order and don’t conflict. This much-requested change also helps prevent water pressure issues.
• Schedule stacking makes it simple to schedule many schedules without thinking through the timing yourself. This is especially important for maintaining water pressure in older houses or houses that draw water from a well.
• Have plenty of water pressure and want to save time? Simply check “run at the same time” when you create schedules and the valves will run concurrently. Note than while your Smart Hose Timer will automatically stack all runs sharing a sunrise or sunset start/end time on a given day, schedules set to run at a specific time will always run exactly when you’ve programmed them to run, so they will interrupt other schedules if anything happens to be running at their programmed start time.

Reduce runoff with Smart Soak

• Rachio is bringing the popular Cycle and Soak feature (now called Smart Soak) from our in-ground controller to the Smart Hose Timer! This feature inserts a pause into the middle of valve runs to give water time to soak into the soil, proactively preventing runoff. Simply select Smart Soak with a check box when you’re creating schedules. This works regardless of whether valves are running at the same time or at different times.

Easily meet annual irrigation needs

• For a variety of reasons, many of our customers like schedules to repeat during specific times of year. This could be a way to manage seasonal watering needs or to comply with local watering restrictions. You can now create or edit schedules to start and end on a specific date each year. Schedules run all year by default; you can change this at any time by selecting the (...) icon to the right of the schedule’s name.

Read more