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Hi Samer/Ray/et al,
Playing with the web app, I have some suggestions about the programs.
First, it’s not clear what the distinction between “duration” and “interval” is. Should I be using both? Is interval a delay between stations? (If yes, perhaps calling it “Delay between stations” would be a better label) I assume duration is the duration of any given station (that seems obvious enough).
Second, my system is kind of weird. My zones don’t all run for the same time because they have different heads. In one program, I’d like to have something like this:
s1: 18 min
s2: 15 min
s3: 25 min
…But it seems that a program can only have 1 duration for all selected stations. That means I have to separate programs for all 15 min stations, 18 min stations, 25 min stations. That’s weird to me, and not like what analog sprinkler controllers allow. Maybe I just don’t get how to use the program feature–I did watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pYHsMZSj6w&feature=youtu.be and it didn’t elaborate on either of those points.
I’d prefer to have programs that fit the time of the summer–spring/early summer (lighter watering), mid-summer (heavy watering). I can’t do that right now, if my understanding above is the way to do it.
Third, it would be nice if I could name a program.
And finally, why is there an “End Time” on a program? If a program is the product: stations * (duration + interval), then an end time is completely useless here–unless you want to stop watering in the middle of your program! Start time is all that matters, AFAICT. Perhaps I’m not getting something here…
Great stuff, though! Loving the controller/software.
Another suggestion:
On the “Run once programs” section, it would be cool if you would allow me to run my preset program(s) manually, without having to enter all the times I already used. I have 10 zones, so that’s cumbersome.
So, to give you some background: I developed the mobile app as a front end to the OpenSprinkler firmware. Afterwards, the interval program came out for the Pi that’s based on the OS firmware.
My web app works with both however as you might have noticed it controls nothing directly. Just relays commands from your phone to the firmware.
With all of that said, I don’t dictate how programs are organized/stored. I actually like Rays system and he also describes why it’s done the way it is in some blog posts (it’s for storage space).
As for the program names, I can’t add that for now and waiting on a firmware upgrade. You have it correct about the duration, it’s per station.
The interval is how often the program is run within the time window. The window is defined as the start and end time (hence why that exists). If the program starts it won’t stop even if it passes the end time.
I am looking into the run-once ad-hoc programs and will hopefully have something out soon.
Hope that makes sense.
Actually, it doesn’t.
You describe the Interval as “number of times” but the Interval unit is “minutes” in the web app. How do you reconcile that difference?
Maybe I’m just not getting what you mean. Can you give an example?
Okay my description sucked, sorry. What I mean is, how long to wait (minutes) before running the program again.
All of this applies to both the interval program and the OS firmware: http://rayshobby.net/?page_id=730
So if I leave it at 0, it runs once, right?
If that’s true, I would suggest relabeling this Interval as Repeat Program Delay, which is much more clear IMO. That also means I need a tight stop on my stop times now 🙁 Getting back to my comment above, having a start/stop time is something most sprinkler controllers just don’t allow for. It’s start time + duration, so adding this interval stuff is really confusing and counterintuitive. Maybe I’m just not using complex enough sprinkler controllers, but I’m not getting why you need to run your program 6 times over the course of the day. Or if you do, why not put in a simple “Repeat Program Times” field? Eliminate end time altogether, or dynamically calculate it…
See what I’m saying?
You have to set this parameter or the program will never run. Just set this to something very high to ensure the program never runs again. I agree this is VERY confusing and took me forever to understand it. It also led to programs not running at first until I understood this.
I am not sure why this option exists entirely and it not something I have ever used personally. However, with that said I do support it. I will consider renaming it like you suggested, thanks!
Perhaps this is related to why I’m not seeing anything in the preview program area? My interval is set to 0.
EDIT: When I update Interval to 600, per your suggestion, my preview works!
Definitely NOT intuitive on that parameter. 🙂
I just added your requested run-once features! You can use preset programs and the scale has been reduced by 50% on the sliders. Let me know how everything works.
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