Summary

Flex Daily Schedules determine when to water dynamically on a zone-by-zone basis; intervals will adjust based on weather conditions and soil moisture estimates. Are you wondering if the Flex Daily schedule is a good fit for you? This article can help you with that!

Video Overview - Flex Daily Schedule

Can I change a Fixed Schedule to a Flex Daily Schedule?

No, however, you can easily create a new Flex Daily schedule and apply your existing zones (and their zone settings) to the new schedule. New schedules can be created at any time from the Rachio app - just go to the "Schedules" tab and tap on "Create Schedule".

How should I start?

We recommend crawling before you walk. Start simply by adding one or two zones to a Flex Daily schedule, and be sure to remove those zones from any other schedules. This will help you get comfortable with the watering frequency and overall Flex behavior. Trying them out for a few weeks and visually inspecting your yard is the best way to fine-tune your flex schedules and verify that they are working correctly.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What if I have a zone with mixed crop types?
   Flex Daily schedules are not recommended for mixed crop type zones.

2. What if I have restrictions?
   Flex Daily schedules allow you to configure watering to one of three modes:
   
   • Any Day
   • Specific days of the week (i.e. Tuesday and Friday)
   • Odd/even interval
   
   We do not recommend using Flex Daily schedules if you cannot water 4 days or more per week as the dynamic nature of Flex Daily schedules could up watering on each non-restricted day trying to catch up to your optimal soil moisture level. For example, if you can only water on Tuesday and Thursday, and the Flex Daily schedule watered on Tuesday, on Thursday it will determine if you can wait until next Tuesday. If not, it will water again on Thursday. The recommended setting is   Any  Day.

3. How do you determine my zone's watering time?
   Zone run times are determined by soil type (available water capacity), nozzle precipitation rate, managed allowed depletion, and crop type (root zone depth). All of these values can be quickly edited within the zone menu screen.

4. Why are my tree and shrub zones watering longer?
   Trees, shrubs, and perennials have much longer roots than cool and warm-season grass so it takes longer to irrigate to the amount of water required to refill the root zone soil water content back up to field capacity. Even though the watering might be longer, the frequency of watering will be much less often.

5. Will the zone watering duration change throughout the season?
   No, only the watering interval (frequency) will change on Flex Daily schedules. The watering duration remains fixed, as it is based on the zone attributes you provide.

6. Why does the calendar show so many watering times?
   Flex Daily schedules will water different zones on different days due to their unique characteristics, often times the calendar might look like it is watering more frequently than it actually is, but this is due to the zone-by-zone scheduling that Flex Daily schedules manage. To know which zones are watering each day, tap on a calendar day to see.

7. My schedule didn't run as predicted, what gives?
   The calendar view (watering schedule) uses forecast data to estimate the next scheduled watering. However, if the observed weather is hotter/cooler and/or more precipitation/less precipitation is reported than forecasted, the Flex Daily schedule may change. Every night at midnight the schedule will update the forecasted weather data with observed weather data and applies a checkbook style accounting of the moisture level for each zone. Any time a zone is calculated to reach its allowed depletion, the zone will be watered.

   Note

   For users who choose the “End By Sunrise” option, you may see only one of your zones watering very early in the morning. Don’t fret - this is intentional. In Flex Daily schedules, not all zones are guaranteed to run during the scheduled time, and they may not necessarily run exactly an hour before sunrise. To ensure all zones have enough time to finish watering before sunrise, Rachio determines the start time based on the maximum duration of the schedule. So schedules may end earlier than the selected end-by time.

8. Why does my next scheduled watering show "Not Scheduled"? 
   Flex Daily schedules will schedule a zone to run once it reaches it's allowed depletion. Since the weather is always changing, we only forecast 14 days into the future. If the moisture levels of your zone are not predicted to fall below allowed depletion within the next 14 days, then your zone will be notated as "Not Scheduled". Please note that since Flex Daily schedules are dynamic, this prediction can change on a daily basis based on the weather data reported.

9. Can I use my personal weather station (PWS) information?
   Yes, all schedule types gather precipitation data from the preferred weather station.

10. When will my zone(s) water next?
    The best place to learn about when & why your Flex Daily schedule is running (or not running) is to review the soil moisture level graphs for the zone in question.
    If you feel your zone is in need of more immediate watering, you can click on the "Adjust" button and select "Empty". This will take your soil moisture down to this zone's minimum threshold. The next time a Flex Daily schedule performs its checks, it will know it's time to refill the zone.
    If you would rather top off your soil moisture, you can instead choose to click "fill".

    Note

    When you create a Flex Daily schedule, this schedule will not run the same day that it was made. This is because the schedule needs time to populate your zones' ET data in order to determine how best to track your zones' moisture balances from then on.

11. Can I make Weather Intelligence changes to my Flex Daily Schedule?
    You can change some Weather Intelligence features on Flex Daily (i.e. Wind Skip and Freeze Skip), but not all. This is because other Weather Intelligence features are "baked in" to Flex Daily calculations; Saturation Skip, Rain Skip, and Seasonal Shift make up an essential part of Flex Daily's incredible water-saving functionality, so these features cannot be turned off. 
    If a zone has enough moisture, the Flex Daily schedule will push that schedule back until the next time that zone needs water. Therefore there are no actual schedule "skips" that occur with Flex Daily schedules, the watering just gets rescheduled as needed.
    
    Flex Daily schedules are constantly monitoring the moisture levels of your zones, so Saturation Skip is not needed for this schedule. Lastly, the duration of a Flex Daily schedule does not change as they are calculated to provide the optimal duration of water whenever the Management Allowed Depletion level for a zone is reached. Therefore, the Seasonal Shift feature is not required for a Flex Daily schedule.

12. I ran my schedule for the first time and it ran for an incredibly long time, what gives?
    The first time we run a Flex Daily schedule, we'll top off the water in each zone. It's not uncommon for the schedule to run longer than expected on the first run. After the first watering, Flex Daily will begin to work its magic. You can learn more about the science behind Flex Daily schedules here. You can also check out this video to learn more about how Flex Daily works.

     

    
    

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