OK, today I got 35 minutes out of the 58 I had set for each of the two sessions. And that happens to be what this value is set to:
I either never noticed this impacting the Simple Irrigation schedule (because I was doing 3x45min and the 45 is only 10 away from the 35 shown)....OR.....something has changed to where this Preference has more effect than what it once did.
In fact, I believe that "Default time to water when turning on" WAS set to 15min because I recall having to punch the manual button on the Orbit a second time when I didn't bump up the time at the device to fill something up. Maybe I changed it so I didn't have to do that just for a quick use of water. I don't recall. EDIT: Damn I hate getting old. For clarification for future readers, the subject Preferences field has nothing to do (that I can tell) with the 'manual' button on the Orbit. That, when pressed, comes up with 10 minutes...which of course you can use the '+' button to increase.
None-the-less I do not AT ALL recall this field having to be blank or a big number to get a full 45 minute session out of Simple Irrigation. And this is happening on TWO separate valves.
Using the following Orbit valve with the ORBIT HOSE WATER TIMER driver:
OK, nothing has changed in your app and so that Preference overrides anything you control with Simple Irrigation so therefore it should be set to some large number or left blank?
I absolutely know that at one time it was set to 15 minutes and your app DID give watering sessions in excess of that value. EDIT: OK, nevermind the "absolutely" part...I'm not sure of anything anymore
Sorry, all I can tell you at this point is to play around with that number. I don't have my Orbit installed right now, so I can't even look at the device page or try anything with it.
OK, I can't believe I've been running what I thought were 40 minute sessions in Simple Irrigation and low and behold they were indeed limited by what I had set in this Orbit Hose Water Timer driver field. Wasn't a big issue when I had THREE 40 minute sessions per watering day but when changing that to TWO 59 minute sessions I indeed was getting half the watering I expected.
^^^^^
The impact of this field (or any similar in any other valve driver) might be captured somewhere in the Simple Irrigation notes/instructions. So this is now set to 65 for my purposes and indeed Simple Irrigation closes the valve at 59 minutes as desired each session.
I can't find this app in HPM. I tried searching for everything I could think of. Would rather install this way if possible but will do it manually if it is no longer in HMP? Thanks for the help.
What would be the best way to change schedules based on seasons. Would I make 4 schedules (winter, spring,...) and use a "season" switch to disable 3 of the 4 schedules? It would be nice to have 4 durations and date ranges for each valve.
I do 4 virtual 'season' switches using bptworld's 'One At A Time' app to keep only the current season on. Because I live in a very temperate region, I assign custom season-change dates (longer summer, shorter winter) with RM. Currently, I only disable it in winter because the Ecowitt sensors handle to varying irrigation amounts.
I just started to add some more features to my configuration - rain sensor, general on/off capability etc. A couple of quick questions - apologies if asked before - I did search through the thread but didn't see anything.
What does "Use with a valve off or switch on mean"?
What is the difference between putting a switch device in the other switch section of Check the Weather and app control switch.
I my case I have a virtual switch on my dashboards that turns on automatic irrigation. If I put it in either section I think it has to be off for the irrigation to run? Thanks.
If you change that you'll see a different list of devices show up, those that identify as valves vs those that identify with switches. The latter case is where you might have a switched valve I presume.
I use virtual switches and they have to be off (as you said) to allow the irrigation process to pass the test. Although I've recently had a problem with one after messing about deselecting/shuffling some of those switch options about. Won't elaborate on here until I understand a little more but I just recreated the child for a test this morning.
As an aside: this app is no longer supported as I understand it; another case of something really functional that folks coming to HE new would probably expect to a be a "built-in" feature. I'm just holding my breath that something in the course of OS upgrades doesn't break it
Ironically I was playing around with a combination of switches with this and for about a week it kept telling me that the weather switch stopped it from running, even when I didn't have any weather switches. So I deleted the setup and started afresh and now it is working again.
That's what I did as well, changed some things and should have left well enough alone so I had to reconstruct those child apps.
FYI this simple driver might help you out. Just set it up then reference it as a switch within Simple Irrigation to turn water schedule on/off every other day irrespective of the day-of-the-week.
Been working well for my needs. Thanks to @thebearmay
this particular notification ought to be set to ON by everyone using this....
First time ever having a problem during the watering season but with the hot weather I'm SOOO glad Simple Irrigation was programmed to say "hey, I tried but I can't reach this valve". Turns out I had a Zigbee mesh problem due to another device (w/repeating capability) coming online & offline repetitively due to a power source problem (this is another topic but there is NOTHING LIKE THAT to have you really re-look at the vulnerabilities in your mesh.)
Agreed. I have actually been running into another problem. Similarly I am watching closely due to the heat. Using an Orbit valve that was working. But then got a C8 and started moving my zigbee devices to that. A disaster - see other threads on that. So moved things back.
Since then Simple Irrigation fails everytime but weirdly if I manually activate the valve it works everytime. I cannot figure it out. I tried increasing the wait from 20 seconds to 60 seconds in the code and increasing the number of tries to 5 but nothing.
I am about to delete the child and try again from scratch.
You can do that. But make sure the valve is actually joined/associated back with your old hub first.
Interestingly I was JUST remunerating the benefits of having two hubs so everything wasn't falling apart at once on my property!
Last night a remote C5 was dealing with a Zigbee mesh storm due to a device (w/ repeater capability) that was powering up & down repeatedly (power source problem).
Anyway, this took THREE of these Orbits off the mesh and they wouldn't come back until I pulled the battery or manually triggered the valve. That's what brought me to making that other post today.
But this is what is weird. I can control the valve fine through the hub it is connected to - open and close work every time. But Simple Irrigation is now failing everytime. So mesh looks ok. I have had issues with this app before when I changed something, causing me to reinstall so I am going to try that and see what happens.
