Rain Delay check via internet

[beegee226]

I suggest checking for rain using a weather web service based on the IP location, bypassing an actually need to a sensor. I just ordered this and as a developer, hope I can contribute to the software.

[Ray]

Sure, we’ve just started working on this using the weather API provided by Wunderground. Hopefully we can release the work in progress soon. There are still a lot of unknowns we need to experiment with. Any help would be appreciated.

[Dan in CA]

Here is a resource that might be useful:
http://www.usbr.gov/waterconservation/docs/SmartController.pdf

It examines weather based irrigation systems. Be sure to check out the section “Weather-Based Irrigation Control System Principles” starting on page 7 of the document (page 17 in the PDF).

Dan

[Kent Thompson]

@ray wrote:

Sure, we’ve just started working on this using the weather API provided by Wunderground. Hopefully we can release the work in progress soon. There are still a lot of unknowns we need to experiment with. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks for the great controller, Ray.

I’m super excited for this functionality. Being able to incorporate weather data would make this controller comparable to the best commercial models.

I was able to easily find average monthly evapotranspiration rate tables for my climate. Being able to set the watering percentage by month wouldn’t be as good as incorporating real evapotranspiration data, but I imagine it would be a lot easier to program.

Here’s a link to a government service that provides ET data for CA: http://wwwcimis.water.ca.gov/cimis/infoGenCimisDataUse.jsp;jsessionid=510EC55C7D421942EA4B4F5C81B45016

Too bad it’s not nation/worldwide.

[Author]

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