What is Weather Intelligence™ Plus?

Last Update:Jul 14 2023 5:28pm • Est. Read Time:Est. Read Time: 3 MIN

What is Weather Intelligence™ Plus?

Weather Intelligence™ Plus is a software feature available to all Rachio smart watering devices. It provides your devices with current and projected hyper-local weather data that’s not only in your area but right outside your door. No other smart sprinkler controller offers weather monitoring this precise or reliable. This data can act as weather triggers to skip watering schedules or adjust watering durations, saving you water. Additionally, no extra hardware or external sensors are required to use Weather Intelligence™ Plus!

Rachio’s self-healing Weather Intelligence™ Plus network empowers the most accurate weather scheduling available by combining data from national weather stations, more than 300,000 personal weather stations, satellite data, radar data, and more to provide hyperlocal forecasting that’s accurate to the location of your controller.


How is Weather Intelligence™ Plus Self-Healing?

Is there a problem with your selected weather station? With our new Self-Healing feature, Weather Intelligence™ Plus can now take action to help. If your weather station stops reporting data for three days or more, Rachio will switch to the closest reporting station and then send you an email notifying you of the change. 


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Want to know how this feature works in practice? Check out this example from our Rachio Community, where a user's Rachio automatically self-healed when a previous station was experiencing trouble. 

Tip

Want to try a different station? The notification email will include instructions on how to switch!

How does Weather Intelligence™ Plus work? 

Rachio receives weather reports from our weather service detailing the weather conditions before and after the watering time; checking both 12 hours and 1 hour before the scheduled run. If these conditions meet or exceed your pre-set threshold, the watering schedule is skipped; saving you from over-watering, and saving money.

What are the functions of Weather Intelligence™ Plus? 

In addition to advanced weather accuracy, Weather Intelligence™ Plus also has the same great skip features as our original Weather Intelligence software.These features act as weather triggers to skip or adjust watering schedules and watering durations, saving you water. The Rachio schedule creator enables all weather skips by default, but they can be disabled if desired. Looking to edit your weather skip thresholds, check out our Weather Skip FAQ

  • Rain Skip

    • This feature will skip the watering schedule when it's raining; if the precipitation threshold is or will be met (looking back 24 hours and ahead 24 hours) at the time the schedule starts, the schedule will be skipped. You can change this threshold under Weather Intelligence in the "More" tab. For more details, please see Rain Skip FAQ.
  • Wind Skip

    • This feature is the newest addition to our Weather Intelligence family! Prevent waste by skipping waterings when high winds are likely to scatter water intended for your plants. If wind speeds exceed your predetermined threshold, Rachio will automatically skip your scheduled watering. You can change this threshold under Weather Intelligence in the "More" tab. For more details, please see Wind Skip FAQ.
  • Saturation Skip

    • This feature will skip the watering schedule anytime the soil moisture balance of ALL zones will stay above the allowed depletion threshold until the next scheduled watering. For details, please see: Saturation Skip FAQ.
  • Freeze Skip

    • This feature will skip the watering schedule based on the observed temperature; if the temperature threshold is at or below at the time the schedule starts, the schedule will be skipped. You can change this threshold under Weather Intelligence in the "More" tab. For more details, please see: Freeze Skip FAQ.
  • Seasonal Shift

    • This feature will update your schedule durations on a monthly basis to offset seasonal weather changes. In short, durations increase from winter to summer and decrease from summer to winter. For details, see article: Seasonal Shift FAQ.


Do you still need help?


We have a chat support team ready to assist you! You can submit a support request by selecting the chat icon in the bottom right of this page and a member of the support team will contact you live.


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