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It rained for the first time yesterday, since I installed opensprinkler. I was curious to see how the % would be adjusted… but it just showed 100%. It rained again today, and 100%. When I click the weather in OS, it shows “– mm” for today’s precip and 0 mm for every future day (which may be correct). Another odd thing I see regards the sunset times. Sunrise for today shows 6:07 and next days are 6:05, 6:04 and 6:02 respectively. That makes sense. But sunset shows 19:50 today followed by a massive jump to 21:50 tomorrow and then no change (21:50) next two days.
Is this wunderground giving bogus data? Or is it OS improperly interpreting?
Which firmware are you using? Firmware 2.1.3 and below have an issue where network updates might stop after a few weeks of OpenSprinkler being on. A reboot usually fixes this issue. Also, check your location is a valid one with proper data. Not all weather stations are always up and have accurate data. So you may have to use the map feature to find a nearby station with accurate data.
Also, in regard to the sunrise/sunset times, the first day is the value on the controller (and the values used for the programs). The remaining days are calculated in the app and might vary just slightly from the controller times. With that said, it shouldn’t vary as drastically as you are pointing out. Therefore, I would suggest rebooting the controller and again checking the sunrise/sunset times.
I was using 2.1.3. I updated to 2.1.4.
I also now have a slightly better understanding of how wunderground gets its data. I was using a nearby weather station that, presumably, does not have a rain meter installed because it would always only show “– mm” rather than a figure. I changed to one slightly further away, and it then showed “0 mm” so hopefully that fixes that part.
Now the sun rise/set times make a little more sense (though they are not entirely accurate) and my % is showing 4%. Whether or not that makes sense, I’m not sure… but at least it is doing something.
I might consider getting my own personal weather station since the ones in my area are all too cheap to have a rain sensor 🙂
Thanks for your help.
Glad to hear the issues are resolving.
If you do get your own weather station, I recommended one with solar radiation which allows ET based calculations. This is something we are working on for future releases.
Update: There are three factors that effect the percentage, by the way: rain, temperature, and humidity. So the other factors are likely the reason you are at 4%.
Good timing on the solar radiation tip… I was just about to buy the Netatmo one, which doesn’t have that. Although, I’m not really sure how important ET is for me, since all of my irrigation is subsurface.
If you would like to use a PWS on wunderground and discover that it occasionally goes down without notice you can try this trick:
Open the wunderground site and do a search for the pws.
Look for the latitude and longitude coordinates. (38.936 -104.726 or ##.## N ##.## W) All South(S) and West(W) locations need a -(negative) in front of the numbers
Copy that number down and log into your opensprinkler. In the bottom right corner select edit options.
Where it says location put the numbers you copied in separated by a comma with no spaces: 38.936,-104.726
DO NOT hit the little location map pin on the right side of that input box.
Then hit Submit in the upper right corner.
Now make sure the weather shows up on your main controller status screen. If you have done this correctly WU will now get the weather for that original station or the next closest one if it’s down. I was told a while back that this may cause an issue with something somewhere, but after a full year of running I have had absolutely no problems, so take my advice with the knowledge there is a slight risk in something going wrong.
ET is bascally how much water a plant loses in a given time period, kinda like measuring how much a person sweats in a day. The calculation can be used to figure out exactly how much water a plant would therefore need to replenish the water lost. Since most plants that are watered have an above ground component, solar radiation plays a factor in the ET calculation. So even if you use a subterranean irrigation system you would need the solar radiation calculation to get an accurate ET amount. Solar radiation can be estimated using your location and cloud cover information from WU, so while not essential actual solar radiation will improve your calculations and help reduce over or under watering.
If you would like to research ET and it’s application to irrigation look up: Penman-Monteith ETo or Hargreaves ETo, as these are the 2 most widely accepted methods.
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