OSPi or ATMega product.

[rederikus]

I currently have a extremely dumb Rain Maker ESP Me 8 zone irrigation system here in Charlotte NC. I inherited this when I bought the house. I wish to replace the controller with something internet connected that will work on my Galaxy S4 and that is a bit more flexible than the Rain Maker product.

I am trying to choose between the Raspberry Pi (I already have three of these and I know them quite well) or the ATMega product. My feeling is that the ATMega is a dedicated product and whilst it clearly works well (from reading this forum) it has somewhat limited memory compared to the RPi. I like having a bit more memory resource available because it would be nice, one day in the future, to have a feed from Wunderground.com that would tell the system proactively when it is going to rain rather than relying on a post-active rain sensor that just tells me when it already has rained.

I have read the Difference with OpenSprinkler page and there really does not seem to be a great deal of difference between the two products.

I am leaning toward the OSPi which is why I put my first post here but am quite prepared to be convinced to go with the ATMega product.

Thanks in advance.

[virtus]

It sounds like you are interested in future capabilities, so I’d say the RPi is going to give you more options in the future. It’s quite a bit cheaper as well ($77 + $35/RPi + SD Card). Of course it’s not quite plug and play, but the preconfigured SD card really makes setup easy. It helps a lot to have some basic linux knowledge (if you have 3 Rpi’s already you’re probably good-to-go). Functionally, they are pretty much the same. With the RPi, you need to access it from another device (computer, phone, tablet) to do anything with it. The ATMega version has a screen and some buttons so many, but not all, of the options can be set from the device itself. It’s kind of nice to be able to see some information without having access it from another device.

If you don’t mind a little extra setup the RPi is what I’d recommend. I did the same thing last year – moved into a new home with an old sprinkler controller and I promptly replaced it with an OpenSprinkler Pi.

[rederikus]

@virtus wrote:

It sounds like you are interested in future capabilities, so I’d say the RPi is going to give you more options in the future. It’s quite a bit cheaper as well ($77 + $35/RPi + SD Card). Of course it’s not quite plug and play, but the preconfigured SD card really makes setup easy. It helps a lot to have some basic linux knowledge (if you have 3 Rpi’s already you’re probably good-to-go). Functionally, they are pretty much the same. With the RPi, you need to access it from another device (computer, phone, tablet) to do anything with it. The ATMega version has a screen and some buttons so many, but not all, of the options can be set from the device itself. It’s kind of nice to be able to see some information without having access it from another device.

If you don’t mind a little extra setup the RPi is what I’d recommend. I did the same thing last year – moved into a new home with an old sprinkler controller and I promptly replaced it with an OpenSprinkler Pi.

virtus, Thanks for your reply. This was exactly what I was hoping to hear. Having an onboard display is, as you say, quite handy. However I do not mind the OSPi being headless as I can either use the web interface, PuTTY or the mobile app – whichever seems appropriate to the task in hand really. I know Linux and the Pi OS quite well so I am already pre-disposed towards the Pi. I guess that’s the way I shall go with this little project.

Thanks again for your advice and opinion. It is much valued.

[rederikus]

I bought an OSPi board and am now in the process of setting it up. I wanted some LEDS on each output and I also wanted to do a decent job of mounting the whole thing in an Orbit water resistant case.

My existing irrigation controller is a Rain Bird ESPMe and it has a Rain Bird WR2 wireless Rain sensor attached so I am also making provision for that to be properly connected without cutting the spade connectors off the cable.

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