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Starting in April, California is adding additional restrictions to water usage. Watering within 2 days of rain will be illegal (with the threat of fines).
Can the Zimmerman weather control code be modified to implement this restriction?
Bill – AB6OR
i need this too. This restriction starts in July as far as i can tell.
I certainly can do this manually.
This can certainly be a possibility. Is this a statewide restriction? Can you provide any official information on this (in case it has information such as amount of rainfall to count for restriction, etc.)?
Since the weather adjustment script knows the location, it can check the rain status of the past two days from the data it already has and adjust the watering percentage to 0%. This would be applied regardless of the weather method being used (currently only Zimmerman).
Just FYI, the weather script is also open source and available here: https://github.com/opensprinkler/weather-adjustment. If anyone wants to fork the code, apply the above method, and pull request then I would be happy to review it and make it available.
I think we need the precise definition of what counts as ‘it has rained’ — like in terms of the amount of precipitation, what’s the threshold? Once we know the quantitative measure, we can modify the Zimmerman method to implement a hard constraint.
Here is some more info http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_27729990/california-drought-state-passes-mandatory-new-water-conservation?source=infinite it is a ban “from watering lawns and landscaping with potable water within 48 hours after measurable rainfall.” Given the rarity of rainfall in the drought, I’m not sure how often this will be necessary.
(as an aside, California is next to the largest body of water in the world. I’ll be drinking fresh desalinated water from it by the end of the year: http://carlsbaddesal.com/ )
Super. Thanks! Attached is the relevant state-wide regulation. If you feel your head starting to explode, stop reading immediately.
It look like rain is defined as “measurable” That is 0.01 inches (http://weather.about.com/od/c/g/chance_of_rain.htm).
Bill – AB6OR
I think 2 days a week watering is only applied if your water supplier doesn’t already have a restriction plan in place. However, I do like the idea of adding this feature. It appears that although the watering percentage is performed on a server/script remotely, some of the other values are being passed back to the getweather_callback function. I haven’t tried this yet but this is what i coded up so far, essentially making it easy to modify the weather.cpp based on the watering algorithm you want (in my case I do not like the temperature to affect the watering percentage where 1F = 4%) so I’ve changed it to 2% so it’s less agressive based on temperature fluctuations (anyone else prefer a less sensitive temperature/% factor than 4% also)?
If the remote server could provide additional data to the OS then users could modify in the OS code for the watering algorithm….? If anyone see’s a problem or has a suggestion with the code changes attached please let me know. Alternatively it would be great to have a few settings we could change such as baseline temperature, and multiplication factor without having to change the code. My last irrigation controller allowed you to specify sensitivity of temperature and humidity along with the baseline values and that seemed to be flexible and work great.
Interesting. For my needs, simply disabling watering within two days of 0.01″ of rain would be sufficient.
bill
It would be helpful if the watering was disabled if rain is expected a day later also (above a certain % chance of precipitation for example). Don’t want to water today if it’s going to rain tomorrow.
In addition to the state-wide water use restrictions in California, my water supplier is recommending (but not yet enforcing) a two day per week irrigation maximum and even/odd day watering schedules (based on postal address and day of month). Further details can be found here: http://www.sjwater.com/news/topic/santa_clara_valley_water_district_sets_new_conservation_target/
Mercifully the schedule restrictions in my city are not as bad. I am able to comply by defining my watering schedule carefully. However the ‘ don’t water within 2 days of 0.01″ of rain’ rule still requires manual intervention that I would like to avoid.
Is there any news on the EPA WaterSense certification? Then is would qualify under the SoCal WaterSmart program. See: http://socalwatersmart.com/index.php/qualifyingproducts/wbics
I’m VERY interested in getting an OpenSprinkler controller to replace my POS Orbit controller. If OpenSprinkler can get certified on that list, though, rebates up to $200 become available, so I can get it for FREE! “Only WBICs that are EPA WaterSense certified qualify for SoCal Water$mart rebates.” It’s ironic that the main feature of those smart controllers (weather integration) is somewhat wasted, given the mandatory minimal watering we are allowed, on a fixed schedule. But as discussed in this thread above, rain delays are key.
I really want a computerized controller for my sprinklers, primarily for logging and verification purposes, so can I know for certain when/if and for how long my lawn watering runs. (It’s a small lawn, but I’ am loathe to give it up) I can foresee this being a big issue in the future, as our drought here in California continues and water restrictions tighten further.
I have looked at other options, like the Rachio Iro, which is pretty slick, but I have major issues with cloud-reliant devices. I want something that’s going to work 100% no matter what the state of my internet connection (and no matter if the manufacturer goes out of the business and turns off their servers, rendering your expensive hardware useless!). No such issues with OpenSprinkler.
I’m especially impressed by the option to connect my own personal weather station to Weather Underground, and point the OS to that for rain stoppage: Then any weather forecast-related options actually work as intended! Los Angeles is a massive city, and an 80% chance of rain could easily mean neighborhoods 10 miles away get drenched while my lawn doesn’t get a single drop. No such issue if the sprinklers are controlled by a rain sensor on my own property.
Samer has already implemented the California Water Restriction and this will become available when firmware 2.1.4 is released. We are finishing up this new firmware and have been working on internal testing. Hopefully it will be released in a few days.
Regarding WaterSense: getting the certificate requires implementing ET-based water adjustment algorithm, and I assume the approval process will take several months, so I don’t foresee this to be completed within the next few months. Sorry.
I am in the same situation as kman. Just starts looking into wbic today because Amazon has a deal on Iro. But I dislike the idea everything has to goes thru their server. The only thing that holds me back with openSprinkler is I could not get the rebate from the socal program. Hopefully you folks can get this work out soon.
California watering restriction has been added to firmware 2.1.4. So after upgrading to firmware 2.1.4 you should see this option under Edit Options -> Weather Control -> Weather-based Restrictions.
Getting WaterSense certification is definitely on our todo list, however, we need to first roll out the ET based weather algorithm as it’s required by EPA. I am not sure how much rebate your city gives you. At the moment OpenSprinkler is still priced at almost $100 less than Rachio. So if the rebate is no more than $100, OpenSprinkler is still a good choice without the rebate.
Just to briefly revisit this issue (ok, I guess more of a feature request than an issue?):
Do you by chance know if the planned ET-based weather algorithms you mention above will be compatible with the current hardware, to be added via a simple firmware update, or will they require upgraded hardware to implement? (if it’s possible to know, currently) Is there any (reasonable) chance they will require new hardware, or are you relatively confident the new features will be made available for the current platform?
The ET-based algorithm is a purely a software upgrade. It will definitely be able to run on the current OpenSprinkler 2.3, OSPi and OSBo. It should be compatible with OS 2.0 and 2.2 as well. However, for OS 2.1 we are not quite sure because the software upgrade might require additional flash memory space, which may not be available on OS 2.1 (due to its rather large bootloader).
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