New seed - Schedules & Zones / Fixed Schedules - Rachio Community
post by franz on May 29, 2018
franz
Co-Founder/CTO @ Rachio
This is a feature we’ve talked about a lot We even have a really cool name for it. Someday would like to get this incorporated into the product.
5 months later
post by mcfly on Oct 18, 2018
Is there any news regarding this feature? I recently seeded my soil, and don’t want to water at night, because of the cool temperatures.
Thanks
5 months later
post by Mallen on Apr 1, 2019
I can’t imagine it’s hard to setup a smart seed schedule based on recommendations for your area and time of year. This is just slacking development on the part of Rachio. These stupid manual schedules for new seed are dumber than dumb. My sprinkler is going off every two hours all night long and I’m waking up to my yard drenched the next day. Come on Rachio step it up.
1 month later
post by mstormo on May 11, 2019
@franz Ping! Any updates on this?
post by hind on May 14, 2019
Agree. Surprised by the limitations of this “app”. It’s basically a timer that I can control from my phone. This can be better. It should be pretty easy to create start and end times and set intervals between…and then schedule it. Start with that pretty minor improvement and move forward.
post by Linn on May 14, 2019
I do my overseeding by setting up 3 fixed schedules, each with just one or two minutes per zone (depending on the kind of heads). I do one in the morning, one around noon, and one in the late afternoon. I put in start and end dates, having all three run for one week, just two the next week, and then just one the last week. A little more work to set up the first time, but I liked this method because I could set it and forget it.
5 months later
post by rrosenwald on Oct 11, 2019
The only way I could figure out how to water every 2 hours from 8 AM to 4 PM for 4 minutes for the next 13 days was to create 5 separate schedules. I’m surprised and disappointed the app can’t handle this.
24 days later
post by johnmsch on Nov 4, 2019
1
PING!
I too have just run into this. Only had my R3 for a couple days, but am a bit frustrated having had to setup 4 schedules for each day for my yearly fescue overseeding. The first is set to finish before sunrise, then 3 more programs each for 4 hours after the previous.
IMO, I think the best solution (but do appreciate the programming that would be involved here) is to have an option to water x number of times between specified start and end times, with the R3 calculating the specific times for each watering within that range. Ideally it would be something like:
Start: end before sunrise
End: end at sunset
Or even specifying specific start and end times, although the sunrise/sunset options would be really sweet!!!
post by bug99 on Nov 6, 2019
Improving the use of sunset and sunrise on schedules (not just one for the controller) would be a big win for many applications of the controller, similar to my smart lights and switches where I can set an offset (+ / - 120 min from each, which changes every day of the year by a few minutes).
post by dpinkus on Nov 11, 2019
Quite simply, I want to water my lawn every hour for a few minutes during daylight.
Then water my lawn every 4 hours during the evening.
Creating two schedules would be the intuitive way to do this, but in your “New Seeing Instructions” you have a Step 5 which says “Decide what time and day your schedule will begin (and end, if you like)…” HOW DO YOU SET BOTH A START TIME AND END TIME? If I say “End before sunrise” --> Then when does it start??? If I say “Start after Sunset” --> Then when does it end??? I have radio buttons for these and “End before a specific time” and “Start at a specific time”, but I want to choose a start time and an end time. Bonus if the start and end times can be based on Sunrise/Sunset, but I care less about that than just having a fixed window of time. I really can’t believe that this isn’t possible, so please advise…
5 months later
post by RickB on Apr 11, 2020
Hoping someday comes this year! Still waiting to see this implemented. Either a daylight hours or an end time would greatly improve the ability to water newly seeded areas.
25 days later
post by Itsjimbob on May 6, 2020
Same problem here. Would love to see start time and stop time on daily or hourly intervals. You can do one or the other but not both. I’m not sure what it even does because it still runs all day and night unless you only run once or twice a day. It is just simple programming Rachio.
11 days later
post by JollyGreenGiant on May 18, 2020
Is there any update on adding daylight hours or an end time to the controller?
post by franz on May 18, 2020
franz
Co-Founder/CTO @ Rachio
This is still not supported. @mckynzee This would be great to have implemented
26 days later
post by Mrredskin on Jun 14, 2020
Yeah, we know it’s not supported. It’s only been 2 years since your customers have been asking for it. God forbid you do something this simple that many are clamoring for
4 months later
post by pikuptruk on Oct 16, 2020
I just purchased and installed this product. I am very disappointed with your lack of urgency in resolving the matters in the thread. Several people on this thread of brought up valid points about adjusting their schedules and you have responded with the same “This is still not supported. This would be great to have implemented ” response. UNACCEPTABLE. Why have you not made this modification to your programming? We demand answers.
8 months later
post by dapug on Jun 17, 2021
Wow I wish I knew this before purchase. I may have to go back to building my own dang sprinkler controller. The custom functionality is soooo limited! Kudos to Rachio for focusing on “smart” watering, but as soon as you want to go off the path on you’re own, you’re SCREWED.
Yep, here I am keeping my seed alive with HOURLY short waterings. But I sure as heck don’t need that same amount of water at night. Can I put in a start/stop window of time? Nope! Can I set a different interval for day vs night watering? Nope! So, soooo dumb! And yet so simple to enable in the software. So what do I have to do here? Put it on standby every night, and hope to remember to resume in the morning??? LAME.
As a software and hardware developer, I can tell you this feature request is EASY. No excuse for Rachio to sit on this for 3+ years!!! No excuse also not to open this thing up for users to really get done what they want here with all sorts of custom config! Seriously, I think I’ll resume development on my controller project and just start competing here. Rachio, feel free to make your app awesome and dominate the market instead.
post by Linn on Jun 17, 2021
Maybe not intuitive, but you could set up a manual cycle and soak.
You could set up another different manual cycle and soak schedule to water at night.
post by dapug on Jun 18, 2021
I do appreciate a good work-around. However, this is super confusing as to what it is doing, and compounded complexity with multiple zones. I shouldn’t have to bust out excel and a calculator to do this! I tried fiddling with this use of cycle/soak, and failed miserably. Likely due to a lack of understanding of what the expected behavior of the device is with regards to cycle and soak, and “hacking” the timing, etc. And it would still run for 24 hours, and watered for 100 minutes rather than 10, despite cycle and soak being set. I don’t get how you run for 10 hours as mentioned, etc. But ultimately this just isn’t intuitive and the need for real features in this area are paramount.
post by rraisley on Jun 18, 2021
You just have to set the TOTAL watering time to 100 minutes, and set up a Manual Cycle and Soak to Cycle for 10 minutes, Soak for 50 minutes, as mentioned above. You still need the Total time, as that determines how many hours it runs.
post by dapug on Jun 18, 2021
yep, got it. Unfortunately, this whole approach wont work for me.
Why? Because there are more than one schedule at play in other areas, and this hangs the entire 10 hours (or 100 minutes, or whatever) until the entire schedule runs with all its cycle/soak iterations, before allowing the next schedule (which might be hourly, but sitting and waiting for this multi-cycle/soak strategy). Lame. This is what hackery gets you
Also I learned I can’t have 2 zones with 2 different short schedules. I.e. “cycle” for 10 minutes in one zone every 1 hour, then do 10 minutes in another zone every 3 hours). In particular, one area of my newly seeded lawn is in shade, another in sun. They need DIFFERENT durations between watering, else one area will dry out, or be flooded accordingly. I cannot put both of these zones in a single cycle/soak schedule because that means a single iteration time, and… I can’t run 2 of such hackery schedules simultaneously, because the first one that kicks off will tie up and dominate the system for 10 hours! Ugh!
Oh, did I mention a 3 hour iteration a bit ago? Yeah, no! I also learned that I can’t even do a 3 hour interval! Nope, 1, 2, 4, 6. So lame. So, so lame! Any reason why we can’t just specify what we want, rather than bow to what these developers assumed we want? Nope. No real technical reason at all - I must be nanny’d and only be given limited options. It just so happens that with my current weather (100F, dry desert), the sun will dry out this zone in about 3 hours, not 2, not 4. So I guess I get to over water, or dry out and burn my seed. Nice.
While I’m at it, I also learned that I can’t enforce a “rest” period between zones. Why does that matter? Well, it doesn’t matter much for grass, but for SEED… think about it. Zones overlap - by design, this is a good thing. But when you have only DIRT, the potential for run-off is high. If zones 1 and 2 overlap, and I need them both to run every X hours, I don’t want them to run one right after another! I want zone 1 to soak in a bit before firing up zone 2. Is that so hard? Yes, yes it is, Rachio.
Most of this would be solvable by simply allowing both start/stop time (or a “do not run time” window) for a schedule. This way, I could actually set up different schedules for zone 1 and 2 (sun and shade, seeding scenario), and just have them run as the system fits them in, meshing together throughout the day. Done. So easy! And then we can address that “rest” feature to put icing on the cake.
Yes I played with this all day. And I kept my seed alive manually babysitting the entire thing, defeating the entire purpose of having a “smart” watering system, or any automated system at all for that matter.
post by twin1 on Jun 19, 2021
How many other zones do you have?
Are they shrubs and/or trees?
post by dapug on Jun 19, 2021
dapug
1
11 zones. several for back yard (mature grass) 2 flower beds with sprayers, 2 drip zones for trees, shrubs. And 2 temporarily seed starting, will be mature grass eventually - and these are the ones with scheduling needs that are drastically different than mature plants.
post by twin1 on Jun 19, 2021
A possible workaround until Rachio makes changes:
For your new seed, set up a fixed schedule with manual cycle and soak as per Linn above.
Then temporarily change all your other zones to water at night by changing the start time for these schedules. Night time watering may not be ideal, but it would be short term until the new seed is established.
Come on Rachio, please make your controller smarter to eliminate this clunky work around!
post by dapug on Jun 19, 2021
Although I do prefer night schedules for the other items, the thing I cannot resolve is the 2 zones for the seeds that have differing requirements. They need different cycle/soak settings, and you can only run ONE using the suggested work-around. That, and I need a rest gap of time between those 2 zones to prevent flooding in the overlap. Ugh. Such simple things.
post by Linn on Jun 19, 2021
I certainly agree that we shouldn’t have to hack it. So this is just another workaround idea so you don’t have to babysit it all day. You don’t want that seed not to prosper!
Can you set up each of the hourly waterings as fixed schedules? One problem I see here is that I don’t know what the limit for number of fixed schedules is. But at least you would be able to have the different durations, and you could arrange the order the zones water in to take care of the overlapping zones so that they didn’t water one right after the other. Your existing schedules for your flower zones could mesh in. The drip zones for the trees/shrubs might have to go at night since they are probably long running, and it’s probably not as critical for the new lawn seed to have the watering all night long.
One advantage to doing it this way is as the seed starts to come up, you could drop out some of the schedules so that it’s every two hours instead of every hour, and then a week or so later make them every 3 hours, etc.
Not pretty, but just trying to come up with a solution with the existing software. You are making me feel fortunate that when I over-seed it’s in the fall when it’s a little bit cooler, and I only have to do it 3 times a day — so I set mine up with fixed schedules.
post by dapug on Jun 19, 2021
Thanks Linn, yeah, I wish I could seed in spring or fall, but my water main broke and yard got torn up and redone, leaving me no choice on time of year. Yay!
I am experimenting today with pretty much what you said, 2 fixed schedules, one for 2 hour interval (sun), one for 3 hour interval (shade). I just went back in and realized its not just hour, but you can set hour+minutes for a start time. Well shoot Rachio… why did you allow that welcomed level of granularity here and not all over the place in this app??? But thank you for at least that!
So I set my sunny spot to start on the hour (9 AM), run for 10 minutes, and then my shade zone to start at 9:30, which is 20 minutes AFTER the 10 minute run of the first zone, which is my “hacked” way of forcing a rest period gap.
post by pfromero on Jun 1, 2024
Hi,
I see the hourly interval on my Rachio 3, but not on my Rachio 1. Is this correct?