Smart Cycle Not Working

post by itsmejson on May 20, 2022

Hi,

I setup my rachio system yesterday and created a Flex Daily Schedule w/ Smart Cycle enabled.

It should have ran this morning for the first time at 3am however I woke up to find that since 20mph wind was detected the schedule did not run.

I ended up running a quick run for my primary schedule I created.

I am noticing though that on this quick run that Smart Cycle is not functioning and that each zone is running for the total allotted run time and not cycling. can you assist with why Smart Cycle is not functioning?

I checked that none of the zones are setup for bubblers as well. Could it be that I have my primary schedule to end by 130pm which due to my water restrictions from city? Meaning that it is not doing a Smart Cycle because it wants to make sure that the cycle is complete before then?

Here are the screenshots for the up next runs:

Here are the settings for the schedule:

post by tmcgahey on May 20, 2022

Rachio calculates the need for a cycle/soak based on a few conditions. Soil type (whether the soil can permeate water at a fast enough rate), slope (is the water going to run off due to a slope), and precipitation rate/inches per hour (is the irrigation putting down too much water for the soil or slope to handle).

If you really feel you need a cycle soak and want to force it, change the slope of the zones to the max (will affect NOTHING else within Rachio). Also, if you have a schedule that contains both grass and shrubs/tree zones, I’m 99% sure that this will automatically disable this feature for all zones. Separate grass out of those schedules and it should function.

post by itsmejson on May 20, 2022

Thank you for your input. My watering days are Tues & Fridays, can’t water after 11am and my water schedule is over 8 hrs What would be the best way to schedule the mulch beds on a separate schedule to not have it overlap?

post by tmcgahey on May 20, 2022

Just set them to start 1 minute apart from each other. It will still run the zone in order as needed, and will start the second after the first. In essence, it will be like having them in the same schedule…

Also, keep us posted how the flex daily is working for you with those heavy watering restrictions. Flex isn’t known to be the best option when limited to only a couple days watering.

post by itsmejson on May 20, 2022

Will give that a try! Would it be better to set up a fixed schedule then? Does the app tell you how much water is being put out for each run?

post by Marzman73 on May 30, 2022

Just installed rachio 3 pro series – I have six zones each have misters and rotor heads mixed in – On my first run smart cycle only soaked one zone – I would like each zone to use the soak feature on every run – Does anyone know what settings I can change for each of my six stations to soak on every…

post by tmcgahey on May 30, 2022

Like I mentioned in the previous post, there are a few things Rachio uses to determine the need for cycle soak. The only one that won’t affect the rest of the scheduling is slope, so you can set that to very steep and see if that will force it.

Out of curiosity, why do you feel that you need to have all zones cycle soak?

post by Marzman73 on May 31, 2022

Thought the soak feature allows more water to get to the roots and helped with runoff — I don’t have steep slopes but I do have slope in some areas that would produce runoff with my old controller — that’s why I wanted all zones to utilize the smart cycle — I had switched to manual but I will try your suggestion and revert back to smart cycle and set all zones to steep slope — thanks for the help.

post by ositosperuanos on Jun 3, 2023

I agree with @Marzman73 and the smart cycle feature is one of the key reasons I purchased this Rachio 3 controller over other options. It is a bit disappointing that the product does not apply smart cycle by default and one has to game the system to force this feature. It would be helpful if the App provides feedback about this feature, like “Feature is Disabled due to Conflict in settings” or something like that. Give an error code that can be easily mapped to the configuration issue so the user can then resolve their issue. I have tried manual soaking with mixed results. I have played with a few settings, like set the “Cycle” to 2 minutes and the “Soak” to 10 minutes, but found that the sprinkler run for longer than the 2 minutes of cycle time (the time varies, unsure why).