Smart Watering?

post by Onyxdragun on Sep 18, 2024

I have my controller set to be smart (or at least I thought I did) and I noticed on a couple of times that the watering will happen during or just before a period of rain.

Where does Rachio get its rain forecast from? The other day, the sprinklers did their thing when the forecast for the area was rain all day. Not only did it rain, it actually poured just a little after the irrigation controller stopped its schedule watering for the morning.

Some days it’s pretty spot on and won’t water when the forecast calls for rain/showers/drizzle and I like to see that our irrigation doesn’t come on when the neighbours clearly don’t run their irrigation on a smart controller. Other days… I’m like, why is it watering when its clearly raining?

The schedule is:

• Interval: Tue/Sat
• Zones: 8
• Times: End before 8am
• Cycle and Soak: Smart Cycle

Weather intelligence:

• Rain Skip: On
• Freeze Skip: On
• Wind Skip: On
• Saturation Skip: On
• Seasonal Shift: On

Firmware Version: iro3-firmare-hk-14-645

post by tmcgahey on Sep 24, 2024

Forecasts are forecasts. Rachio wouldn’t run if the forecasted rainfall totals were below whatever threshold you set. Of course, forecasts seems to rarely be that accurate anymore…

Now, if it rained prior to the run, and the amount was over the threshold, there is still a chance it could run. If using Flex Daily, and the rainfall amounts (even though they were over the threshold) don’t “fill the zone” enough, it will still run. You have to understand that when your irrigation runs, most of the time, it will be putting down over 1/2" of water, so it actually take a good amount of rain (I’m from AZ, so any rain is a good amount for me!) to satisfy the needs of the zone. This also assumes that whatever PWS you have Rachio pointing to is accurately reporting rainfall totals.