Watherstation

post by Gatekeeper on Oct 29, 2021

Tell your dam IT GUY to leave my Rachio alone. Who in the hell authorized him to change my weather station. I prefer to have to choose no weather station. I have a rain gauge I trust more then any weather station or weather person. I live in Florida, 90% of the rain comes from the coast and never hit the center of Florida. In stead of making changes people want to make these change and don’t tell any one. You never post any update coming. So stop making changes without my knowledge. Listen to your customers and not some it guy trying to make his job easier and ours more difficult. Leave my Rachio alone.

post by tmcgahey on Oct 29, 2021

Did you actually look at the information and see that the weather station changed? I had the same banner on all my controllers, but nothing was changed with my weather stations…

post by Gatekeeper on Oct 29, 2021

Yes, I had a local pws set that doesn’t collect nor calculate the rain. And when the kid IT changed my to their recommended weather station it tripped the irrigation to turn off. Alerting me that it will skip the watering today. I don’t know why they don’t want to make the changes we ask and but they alter your setting without your knowledge and permission. I use a fixed schedule and had it set for 3 yrs. Working perfectly without Interruptions. I not new to Rachio and why can they have no weather station. I have a rain gauge and trust it more then any weather station or weather meteorologist. I don’t live in Tampa nor do care what rain cycle is, nor should it affect my Rachio. Florida has mostly coastal weather patterns and just because a coastal city got rain doesn’t mean anyone inland will get it. I’ve personally seen it rain 5 blocks from me and I never hid rain for a week. I don’t want Rachio to change any of my setting without my permission. If Microsoft can notify customers so can Rachio. Simple. Just got an email advising they turned off my weather intelligence hope it's just the perception Finally thank you Rachio But should have been an option to not activate weather intelligence in the first place. Anyone that has Rachio need to check their setting.

post by Linn on Oct 29, 2021

The option to turn off the components of weather intelligence has been there for quite some time. For a schedule, you can turn off rain skip, wind skip, seasonal shift, saturation skip, and freeze skip in any combination you desire. Turning them all off would turn off weather intelligence.

post by Gatekeeper on Oct 29, 2021

If it was there all this time, then why was I notified when you updated your recommendations from my PWS site and changed my setting without my permission. Your changes tripped the notification of turning off my scheduled irrigation. You changed the weather station and I caught your error. You corrected it for now. So if Microsoft can notify millions of customers, you should be able to notify us. Don’t change our settings. Simple.

For those that need to understand, as I posted many times early. Most PWS don’t calculate precipitation. Wind and temperature are what it is! So if your Rachio is connected to a neighbor's PWS you won’t get any notifications unless Rachio changes your setting.

Rachio changed my setting and corrected their error and I thank them. So if you want them to control your irrigation great. I don’t. They need to think how their changes affect every user, not just a few. Any IT person could program to let customers decide what they want to use or not. That is it period.

post by rraisley on Oct 29, 2021

So, you had a weather station, which did NOT measure any rainfall, and selected it?? Rainfall is the ONLY parameter used from a PWS, and you chose one that didn’t measure it? And were unhappy when Rachio changed it??

Since you’re using Fixed Schedules, the amount of rain would never be used anyhow. Only the Rain Skip or Saturation Skip would do that, and of course they never could with a PWS not reporting rain. Apparently, you want it that way, using a manual rain gauge to determine when to water. Nothing wrong with that, I’ve worked that way before Rachio’s Flex Daily. But that’s also no reason to even choose a PWS. Simply go with Weather Intelligence Plus, then IGNORE IT, by turning off Rain Skip and Saturation Skip, and continue on.

post by Gatekeeper on Oct 30, 2021

You are so wrong, you forget about wind and freezing. Just because a PWS has precipitation indicated that doesn’t mean they work, 90% don’t register any precipitation at all, but they all have temp and wind, that would then allow the wind and freezing is useful for irrigation and yes even in central Florida some winter night does get below 32 degrees. You also need to review others that had similar weather station posts. You might just find out how wrong you are.

Oh and don’t bother mentioning about watering at night. It rains at night too, that’s the most stupid excuse to not water at night. And fungus, Florida dirt is full of fungus naturally.

Rachio admitted that they use a 3rd party to calculate the precipitation not reported by PWS. Rachio failed to take into the effect of weather patterns and just because Tampa or Daytona gets rain doesn’t mean it’s going to come inland. like I said earlier I seen it rain five blocks from my house and I never got a drop of rain in a week. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a PWS are inaccurate and do not indicate rain 5 miles or 5 blocks away.

You can keep your flex schedule I used them once and almost lost my lawn and to replace 1500 sq ft of sod here is high. I would warn anyone beware flex schedules. I want to know when my irrigation going to run and how long it's going to run! I’m not leaving it up to some algo programmed.

Rachio isn’t going to pay for any damages caused by the system malfunction nor should you trust them with believing the system programming going to work every time. They have no right to alter someone's schedule without their knowledge and permission. We all need to be allowed to select any updates not to have it arbitrarily changed.

post by rraisley on Oct 30, 2021

I think you’re missing a big point: NO PWS information is used from ANY PWS except rainfall. So your freeze warnings and everything else (except rain) are from Weather Intelligence, averaged for your system. Specifying a particular PWS has no effect on the operation (again, except for rainfall - which you don’t want).

post by Linn on Oct 31, 2021

Please be advised that I am just a customer like you and the people on this forum. We are just here to help each other out.

As @rraisley stated, the PWS is used by Rachio ONLY for precipitation. And you have the option (and have had) to turn the other weather intelligence components off as well.

Also, I have my own PWS. The ONLY time Rachio has changed my PWS is when my own system has gone offline. Rachio does not change weather stations on a whim.

post by Gatekeeper on Oct 31, 2021

Linn you and Rraisley are misinforming. Most PWS do not provide any precipitation, Rachio is filling in the information from a 3rd part. they even admitted it, you admitted that Rachio does change your own PWS so your points are mute. PWS do provide temperature and wind that the little thing going around on your PWS, as well as other info.

So keep thinking what you two want to, Don’t bother me with your misinformation on PWS.

Rachio corrected the problem for me, it’s done. Get over it. You two are purely the reason Rachio needs to remove their “power user status”.

post by rraisley on Oct 31, 2021

Talk about misinformation. I think we have a winner here!

Well, for the maybe 20 PWS locations close to me, all but 1 or 2 provide rainfall. Including my own. And of course, an easy check is that the exact daily rainfall I read from my Acurite system shows up in my Flex Daily chart. And my rainfall is always different than those around me (which is why I bought my own PWS), so that confirms that registering my PWS with Rachio actually uses the rainfall from my PWS.

When selecting Weather Intelligence Plus, rather than a single PWS, Rachio uses some average of stations nearby. I don’t know how many or how they select them.

No, both I and Linn “admitted” that if your selected PWS quits transmitting, after a period of time, Rachio will change it to a different, working PWS nearby. Which is certainly better than blindly continuing with a non-working station. And they notify you.

Yes, Mr. Misinformation. Sure, the PWS do provide that information. But Rachio doesn’t use it. I’m sure they can get it, but they don’t use it. One reason I usually turn off Wind Skip, because I have a lot of trees around me, so my ground wind is much lower than surrounding values, and Rachio would skip when I don’t need it to (because they NEVER use my wind information).

I’m sure Rachio humored you and did what you asked them to. I’m tempted to say myself, “Sure, you’re right”, then ignore you. But as a “Power User” I don’t like misinformation posted here without correction. Good to know I and Linn are the “pure reason” for anything. 🙂

post by Gatekeeper on Oct 31, 2021

Well amazing you two keep changing your stories and now you're agreeing that they do change your PWS and the PWS gets wind and temp. Since you feel that wind is useless to you, you turn it off and you think Rachio don’t use it, then why have it available? You both have shown your ignorance and proven yourself both wrong. I learned long ago that when people like you two keep changing their stands they know NOTHING. So stop bothering me and find someone else to impress. RACHIO NEEDS TO LOCK THIS THREAD I’M TIRED AND RUNNING OUT OF PATIENCE WITH YOU TWO.

post by rraisley on Oct 31, 2021

Rachio doesn’t have to lock it. I’m THRILLED to do so and not have to read your misspelled drivel. Take a language course, okay?

Closed on Oct 31, 2021

Closed on Oct 31, 2021