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I wonder could it be possible to add an extra delay if rain was detected by the rain sensor?
My problem is that if it rains in the evening for a couple of hours, the sprinkler starts watering in the morning, because during the night the sensor dries out (even at the most sensitive setting). We don’t need any watering at all, if any rain was detected in the last 24 hours.
I would set a 24 hours delay to the rain sensor, but don’t see any option for that.
We have a weather adjustment method called auto rain delay which supports a value such as 24 hours. This works using the network to ask our API for data based on your location.
Thanks!
I know about that, but I read that it has issues due to unreliable weather info. Don’t even see any humidity data for my location.
I’d simply use my sensor to trigger the 24 hours delay.
My previous, 10-years old Toro sprinkler was able to do that…
The rain sensor itself should have a way to adjust the rain delay amount. Many rain sensors have an opening that you can adjust the size to control the evaporation. Adding the extra delay is certainly possible in software, but it will incur other changes, for example, someone will want to maybe cancel the extra delay so the UI/app has to be changed to also accommodate that. I think it would be better to use a rain sensor that can provide the appropriate amount of delay itself.
Yes it does have, but as i wrote, it dries out too fast. Tried my neighbor’s sensor too, (different type), and also the same.
I think it would be really useful for many of us out there, to have the same (or similar) delay options regardless of the methods used (Zimmerman or local sensor).
All that would need to be done is to just add an option with how many hours of delay would be needed after the rain has beed detected. To cancel it (when the event has happened), one would just have to set this value to zero and that’all.
I would like to know how the sensor RSD Rain Sensor – RSD-BEx is managed by the system ? Can it delay the rain based on this sensor or if it is not the case how it is used ?
Currently with OpenSprinkler all you get is that if it happens to rain when you want to water, it blocks it, +3-4 hours. Can’t add extra delay.
It’all the same as the other rain sensors. There is a ring which controls how fast it dries back after the rain, but this is not something really smart.
For example, with the drying ring totally open, it dries out within 3 hours, with the ring closed, it dries within 4 hours. If it’s windy, it dries out faster, also during the day.
Totally unreliable method, compared to what a software could do. You’re nowhere near if you want 24 hours of delay after a rain.
My extra-old Toro GK8-16-04 was able to do that, I really don’t get it how can it be that such an innovative solution like OpenSprinkler is missing a basic feature like this…
@robî, sorry but I would like to know how rain sensor is working ? For example if it is raining during 10 minutes or 3hours it will not be the same. So how the system take into consideration the rain sensor ? Does it monitor how long the sensor is closed in order to know the duration of rain or is it detecting only the first time that is closed and then apply a delay of x hours ? On my configuration setup I am allowed to change the delay to restart the programs. But I definitely do not understand how rain sensor is working on OpenSprinkler. Please help me !
@vince6464: rain sensor is a rain-activated switch. When it detects rain, the switch closes (or opens, depending on its specific type), and that can be detected by OpenSprinkler. If rain sensor is activated on settings, the controller stops watering on zones (unless if a zone is set to ‘ignore rain’), as long as the sensor is activated.
@robi: there is a big difference of OpenSprinkler with other controllers — OpenSprinkler is completely open-source, so you can modify the code to implement any feature you want. It’s not possible for us to address everyone’s need, that’s why we make it open, so if you have some programming skills, you can modify it anyway you want; if not, this provides a good motivation to learn some programming basics.Back to your question about rain delay: there is no technical barrier to implement this feature, I just didn’t think it was necessary. We can certainly add it to the firmware, but there are some details to sort out, because often users want the feature implemented in different ways. For example:
– let’s say a rain delay is enabled when rain sensor activates, do you want the rain delay to be enabled as soon as the rain sensor is activated, or it’s done as an extension after the rain sensor is deactivated? In other words, if the rain sensor is activated at time X, and deactivated at Y, do you want the software rain delay to be from time X or Y?
– note that the rain sensor is not always reliable — sometimes it gets activated for a few seconds and then deactivated, which indicates a false triggering. Most likely we don’t want to enable a rain delay as soon as the rain sensor is activated, rather, instead, we should check if it keeps activated for some amount of time (window size), before we trigger a rain delay. What should be an appropriate window size?@Ray, Thanks for your reply. It would be very interesting to have a function that take more advantage of the rain sensor by:
– if the cumulative time between X and Y (over a period of time) is above T then we could delay the sprinkler by H hours –> and this could be parametered by user based on the observation because if it rain 1 hour or 6 hours since the last spray it is not the same as it would have rain during 5 hours. The soil will need less water in the second case that on the first. So delaying the spray is more inportant on the second case than on the first case.Having also a graph of rain time based on rain sensor would be good as well (only duration of rain and not a cuimulative one).
Definitively this is something that would had value to the system.
Yes, I agree with all the above.
I think filtering out false triggers using a window of 30 seconds would suffice.
Another alternative would be for user to take advantage of personal weather station already in place at home. I have a weather station from (https://weatherflow.com/smart-home-weather-stations/) that could be used for rain detection as well but what is still important is to know the amount of rain fall in order to properly delay the spray.
I modified in the past the location in opensprinkler in order to set the ID of weather underground for my location. Since I have my own weather station from weatherflow could I use it for the rain ? My weather station is already registered under weather underground. But, unfortunatelly as I setuped few years ago my opensprinkler I do not know where I could change this setup for the weather. Then there is IFTTT but how could I use ? Hardware version = 2.3AC and firmware 2.1.7
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