New user – several questions

[Robert]

I just bought the native hardware open sprinkler controller and installed it – I’m having a few issues:

1. I can’t seem to get the static ip feature to work – I worked around this for now by doing a DHCP reservation on my router, but I tried several times switching DHCP off, back on and back off, and rebooting the unit, and it just kept going to DHCP.

2. I had an internet outage today and the controller was just giving me blank pages – I do have the weather API enabled – is there a way to ensure I can still get the interface even if the internet connection is down? The unit was still connected to the router and I tried turning it off and back on, same result.

3. I have yet to have a program trigger – I’m using the Zimmerman algorithm. I know everything is hooked up right as I can manually turn the zones on and off and I’ve looked through the two programs several times to make sure that they are enabled etc. Is there a way to explicitly see that the algorithm is cancelling the watering – I don’t see anything in the logs. It did show yesterday that today’s program was supposed to run, but it didn’t run and now it shows nothing scheduled for today.

[Ray]

1. Assuming you have OpenSprinkler 3.0 — there is a bug in the current firmware 2.1.7 that basically ignores static IP for OS 3.0. This can be easily fixed. In the meantime, I highly recommend you to use DHCP reservation (as you are already doing) as that is the right way to do static IP (setting static IP on the controller itself is not recommended).

2. The ‘blank pages’ are likely not due to the controller itself, but due to the browser / app you are using not being able to reach the Internet. When you access the controller, it returns the controller variables and pointers to Javascripts stored on cloud server. If your browser / app cannot reach the cloud server, that would not render the pages correctly.

3. If you are using Zimmerman algorithm, then it directly changes the watering percentage, which you can see on the homepage of the controller. The controller also logs the watering percentage every hour. If the watering percentage is 0 (and if the program is set to Use Weather, then it will not run).

[Robert]

Thanks, #1 and 3 make sense to me. As far as #2, that’s the problem, my internet was down so the cloud server couldn’t be reached. I was under the impression that the controller could still be used with no internet service? Doesn’t happen often but when it does I guess it’s an issue? I have the pre-built controller, the one that’s all ready to use from opensprinkler.org, so I’m using it stock with whatever scripts and web pages are built into it. Thanks for your help.

[Ray]

Regarding #2: the controller still operates and runs programs even if Internet is lost. However, as I said, to access the controller and render the webpage, the browser you are using to access the controller needs to have internet connection. However, if you use the OpenSprinkler mobile app, then it should be fine because the mobile app has the Javascripts required built-in, so it doesn’t need to access the Internet for those Javascripts.

[Author]

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