New seed

post by Sean13 on May 14, 2018

I’d love to see the option for newly seeded lawn for an individual zone. Obviously you want to keep New seed moist but not soaked to the point of run off. Right now I have to do manual runs for short spans in the zones where I have new seed.

post by timber on May 14, 2018

@Sean13 We currently have an hourly interval option under Fixed Schedule -> Hourly Interval. It provides you the option to water every hour, 2 hours, 4 hours and 6 hours.

By moving your seed zones into this schedule, you can provide consistent moisture for those seedlings.

post by Sean13 on May 14, 2018

Thanks for the tip!

post by tburch on May 14, 2018

I’ve been going through this as well, and although there are 2/4/6 interval hours, it’d make the schedule run at times when water doesn’t need to be applied (at night). A much better schedule would be every 2/4/6 hours during daylight hours. I couldn’t figure out a way to set this up in the app…

post by mckynzee on May 14, 2018

Hey @tburch!

I agree this would be a cool feature add, we currently do not support this functionality. I will let the team know! Thank you for the recommendation.

post by mstormo on May 29, 2018

I’ve gone through this process too, and really, this is what computers are made for!

I recently installed some Palmetto St. Augustine, and needed to water 3 of the zones a lot more than usual, and back it off gradually over the next 6 or so weeks. It would be ideal if I could just mark those zones in my Flexible schedule, and it would automatically add the additional watering times, and gradually bring it back to normal within the ideal time frame. I shouldn’t have to mess with manual schedules for this!

Sounds like a fairly awesome low-hanging feature to pick up, doesn’t it?

post by franz on May 29, 2018

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

post by johnmsch on Nov 4, 2019

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

I don’t see a solution in this thread to having an interval schedule with a specific start and end time.

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…

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.

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.

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

This is still not supported. @mckynzee This would be great to have implemented

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.

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.

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.

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 other 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!

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

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.

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.

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!

post by jtmb22 on Jun 1, 2024

Hi,

I see the hourly interval on my Rachio 3, but not on my Rachio 1. Is this correct?