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Hey all-
I just found the Open Sprinkler project and am pretty excited about it. I’m doing some initial research and will be ordering one soon, so I’ve been digging through the github and documentation.
One of the ideas I was looking into I haven’t quite found yet….
I’m looking for the ability to adjust the watering amount daily – trying to use the “water index” from the local water district. However, if the internet was down or connections were broken, the timer should rely on a basic program built inside the timer.
This was making me think of using an external server with the HTTP API to control the timer, but have some kind of “server override” variable. The “server override” would reset every day, and if the server didn’t modify it, the timer would use the normal timer program.
Has anyone worked on an external package or script to toy with the programs? it would simplify the work to keep from having to compile and flash the unit I believe.
Also – am I approaching the thought wrong by having an override that is used by an external server, but having the unit itself go back to a standard program if it loses communication?
You might be over thinking it. You can setup a basic program that runs normally and modify it as parameters come in using the API.
For example, if your program wanted to double the watering times for all stations you could simply change the watering level from 100% to 200%.
If you want to tweak specific programs you also could push those changes each day as appropriate.
Thanks for the response.
I guess the concern is if you have something that modifies the program externally, that would “stick” in the program as it exists in the timer, right?
In other words, let’s say I was playing with a web server and a script that checked the water index or a weather website and it saw it was going to rain, so set the watering level from 100% to 0%. Then the web server crashed and took a few days to get back working – that watering level would be stuck at 0 right?
Ah okay, I see your concern. Are you using the Pi version or not? If your using the Pi version you could just have a script that restores a default config every night like you suggested.
If not, I don’t think you can currently do what your wanting. You either depend on the server or don’t. However, instead of doing a 0% (if your trying to prevent a program running) you can do a rain delay. That has a timer by default. Of course limited but again not sure how aggressively you want to modify your watering.
Of course, you can also modify the actual firmware on the OpenSprinkler to use weather control directly. I know with version 2.0 it has a lot more memory and could possibly accommodate something like that.
Nice-
Thanks, and I like the work you’ve done on your own external server app 🙂
I guess I was looking at the basic Arduino version and hadn’t looked into the raspi version as much. I wasn’t adverse to editing the arduino code to reset itself everynight (possibly) but I’ll look more into the raspi solution a bit, because your idea there sounds cool.
Thanks-
You’ve pointed me in the right direction, you’re right I was overthinking.
I didn’t realize there was the water level percentage on my first readthrough. I might look into auto-setting that to 100% every night and then adjusting it before the programs kick off with an external server, but other than that, everything else will be perfect.
Looks like I’m gonna buy a new toy soon =)
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