Understanding Flex Monthly

post by Wolfy13 on Apr 18, 2024

This is year 3 with my Rachio 3e. Im really struggling to set a flex monthly schedule, or at least understand what its doing.

Ive tried 2 different schedules for “specific days”:

1. Mon/Tue and Thur/Fri starting May 1 ending before sunrise
   Results - the calendar shows 41m watering on Sunday and 41m watering on Thur (this repeats all the way until December)

2. Sun/Mon/Tue and Thur/Fri starting May 1 ending before sunrise
   Results - the calendar shows watering 32m on all 5 days (this repeats until November)

So, on one smart schedule it thinks my lawn needs 82m of total watering per week and the other will water much more frequently and a total of 160m of total watering per week. All I want it to do is allow the flex schedule to water whenever it believes it needs watering and for the appropriate amount of time. But when I see such a drastic difference in water usage, I question what it's actually doing. If I allow “any day”, the calendar will water EVERY day for 26m. If I choose “odd days”, it waters every odd day for 46m (skips June 1 for some reason). This just seems very erratic and doesn't give me any sense for how often my lawn should actually be watered.

post by Fl-user on Apr 18, 2024

I found Flex Monthly to be very weird. I switched to Flex Daily and chose specific days and then checked each day. Couldn’t be happier with Flex Daily. Getting 2 neighbors converted to Rachio.

I think Flex Monthly when you choose the days, it will set the calendar showing watering on those days BUT it may not actually water depending on need.

post by Wolfy13 on Apr 18, 2024

Unfortunately I have the 3e which doesn't have flex daily. I was looking into the 3, but $200.

The last part about “showing on those days but not watering in those days”. I thought that too, but why in the 4 day scenario doesn't it show every day like it does in all the other scenarios?

post by Fl-user on Apr 18, 2024

Can’t explain that but Flex Monthly is just weird. I went to Rachio.com yesterday and a pop up offered $40 off if you signed up for texts. It popped up after I clicked on “Store” at the top. Not sure if it is still available.