aaarghhh… I just wrote a lengthy reply to this message, pressed the “submit” button, and then it told me that I must be logged into post anything. It would have been nice to know that before they gave me an input screen with a Submit button. 🙁
@David, there can be huge differences between what the controller thinks it is doing and what actually happens. Broken pipes (before or after the control valve), broken sprinkler heads gushing water or not delivering, valves stuck open or closed, drip lines chewed through, and pumps/master valves/wells/water pressure problems. So there are dozens of points of failure that can have really bad consequences. (twice, I’ve come home from vacation to find a burst pipe. These cost me $800 and $1200 in water bills.) Accurate metering, describing exactly what happened, is really valuable.
It is also important to meter what is happening when the valves are NOT on. I want to put my meter upstream of all my valves, so I can see any leaks or strange behavior.
And, of course, I want to see me water flow (and alerts) in real time on my watch 🙂