Configuring Sensors

Hydrawise supports two types of sensors:

1. Flow sensors that measure water usage for an irrigation zone (or zones).
2. Rain sensors or moisture sensors (sometimes called on/off sensors) that allow you to suspend watering cycles for a zone (or zones).

Flow Meters

Flow meters measure the amount of water going onto each zone. This is really useful for understanding water usage and monitoring issues such as broken pipes.

Hydrawise reporting allows you to see how much water is used for each zone and how much water is used across your system.

With a flow meter, you can also create alerts for flow issues, which will keep you up to date on what’s happening (particularly important for unattended homes). See Creating Alerts for more information.

Rain/Moisture Sensors

Hydrawise also supports standard open/closed contact rain sensors and soil moisture sensors. In fact, you can use any generic type of sensor that has an open/close contact.

These sensors use two wires and are usually labeled as normally open (sometimes called NO) or normally closed (sometimes called NC).

A rain or moisture sensor is usually used to stop irrigation. However, you can also create your own custom sensor types to start irrigation or for other advanced applications. See Creating a Custom Sensor for more information.

Sensor Wiring

The flow meter wires need to be cabled back to the controller and connected to the Sensor inputs on the controller.

Wiring for standard Hydrawise 0.75 inch (20 mm) or 1 inch (25 mm) flow meters is as follows:

Flow Meter Wire	Label on Controller
Blue	Sensor 1, 2
White	Common
Red	Not Connected

Wiring for open/close contact sensors is as follows:

Sensor Wire	Label on Controller
Normally Open/Normally Closed Wire	Sensor 1, 2
Second Wire	0V

Once you’ve wired your rain or moisture sensor, configure it in your Hydrawise account as shown below.

 

Sensor Configuration

There are two steps to getting your sensor to work for each of your zones:

1. Create a new sensor in your Hydrawise account under Sensors. Choose the controller the sensor is connected to and the sensor input you connected it to. Also, choose your sensor type as outlined below or create a custom sensor.

   Flow meter with ¾-inch coupling	A Hydrawise ¾-inch flow meter
   Flow meter with 1-inch coupling	A Hydrawise 1-inch flow meter
   Rain Sensor (Normally Closed)	A standard rain sensor (use this if you have wired the rain sensor’s normally closed wire to the controller)
   Rain Sensor (Normally Open)	A standard rain sensor (use this if you have wired the rain sensor’s normally open wire to the controller)
   Soil Moisture Sensor (Normally Closed)	A standard soil moisture sensor (use this if you have wired the soil moisture sensor’s normally closed wire to the controller)
   Soil Moisture Sensor (Normally Open)	A standard soil moisture sensor (use this if you have wired the soil moisture sensor’s normally open wire to the controller)

   
2. Once you’ve created your sensor, assign the zones that will use the sensor in the sensor table.

Create a Custom Sensor

You can also create custom sensors in your Hydrawise account under Sensors.

Some examples of custom sensor types are:

• A flow meter of a different size to the standard Hydrawise flow meters.
• A sensor to conform to restrictions that specify no watering for a minimum period of time after rain is detected.
• A sensor to start irrigation if motion is detected (Enthusiast Plan only)

To add a custom sensor type, go to Sensors and click on Add Custom Sensor Type. Give the sensor a name and choose its type as outlined below.

Flow Meter

Liters per pulse:

The number of liters of water expected to pass through the flow sensor per flow meter pulse (you can get this information from your flow meter’s specifications)

Normally Open Sensor/Normally Closed Sensor

Sensor Action:

Whether the sensor should cause a zone to start or stop.

Start a Zone

If the zone should start, choose the minimum number of seconds before the sensor can cause the same zone to start again.

Stop a Zone

If the zone should stop, choose the number of seconds to delay before stopping the zone, and how long the zone should be disabled.

For example, some watering restrictions require that if rain is detected, sprinklers should not run for at least two days.