Question about RainBird ST8 sprinkler controller

[drabina]

I am looking to upgrade my ancient sprinkler controller with a new wi-fi enabled one. I do not need tons of fancy features since we are pretty limited on when can we use sprinklers due to the water restrictions. Currently, I can only water on Wednesdays and Sundays.

My question is, does the RainBird ST8 controller offers an automatic skip of watering day if there is a rain in the forecast or it had rained a day before? I.e. if the system is set to go off on Wednesday, can the ST8 stop Wednesday's watering if it had rained on Tuesday or rain is expected on Thursday? That's pretty much the only feature I really need in the new controller as it will save me from constantly going to the garage to manually turn the system on and off.

 

[havasu]

The only rain controllers I'm aware of shuts down watering only after it has already rained. A forecast on a 50% chance of rain won't cause your controller to stop from running, since heck, even the professional weathermen are only about 10% accurate. Oops, I guess being politically correct, "Weatherpeople!"

 

[drabina]

I agree that 50% chance of rain means that we may not see a drop of water but if I could set the controller to skip watering when i.e.75-90% of rain is predicted, that would be good enough for me. I can then use my phone to turn the system on in case it doesn't actually rain.

I am also reading about the B-hyve controller and it has a rain delay feature that can be set for +/-24 hours so I am assuming that if the rain is in the forecast within 24 hours (before or after the scheduled watering), the controller will skip the program for that day.

 

[havasu]

Yeah, even my $29 Orbit controller has a rain sensor and a potential rain delay which will postpone 24, 48 or 72 hours.

 

[8307c4]

You want my advice, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

[drabina]

Thank you all for a good advice. I do still want to upgrade to have the ability to control the system from a phone and to be able to skip watering if rain is expected in the next few hours after the program is supposed to run. Yesterday, we had a situation which rain sensor wouldn't be able to handle. It was dry and my sprinklers came on early morning but we had tons of rain in the afternoon. Only smart controller would be able to figure this one out. And again, my current controller allows me to turn it on or off only. There is no way to press a button to skip one watering which means I have to remember to turn it back on if I control it manually.

 

[8307c4]

That does make sense, but speaking from my own experience rain is a sporadic event that does occur on a somewhat regular basis. Whether it rains once a week or once a month, that is how much and how often it rains. Granted it is annoying when it rains a lot on top of the irrigation system running, not only does the yard end up muddy and soaking wet but while it may appear wasteful it may in fact be highly beneficial in terms of depth and soil penetration... It takes a long time to understand, what we really want isn't frequent watering, what we want are infrequent but long watering sessions.

Assume that your sprinkler is presently watering daily at 100% (those are my favorite controllers, the ones with % setttings).
Based on that 100% setting example:
You are better off watering three days a week at 200% (total 600%)
Than once a day at 100% (total 700%)
Because at 200% the water goes DOWN into the soil further!

Going to leave it at that for now.