Sensors and Flow Meter - Configuration

Hydrawise supports two types of sensors:

1. Flow sensors that measure water usage for an irrigation zone (or zones).
2. Rain sensors, wind sensors, and 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.

Wiring

The flow meter wires need to be cabled back to the controller and connected to the Sensor inputs on the controller.  See chart below for wiring standard Hydrawise flow meters (Sizes include 3/4", 1", 1.5", 2")

Once you’ve wired your rain, moisture sensor or flow meter, 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 sensor name, type of sensor, and the controller input.  You also have the option to  create a custom sensor.

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

STEP 1

STEP 2

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.

Custom Setup Example