Smart Watering is an automated watering schedule that uses information about environmental conditions to ensure your plants get the optimum amount of water. Evaporation will draw moisture from your garden, while rainfall and irrigation will add moisture. Understanding these conditions allows Hydrawise to decide when the time is right to water your garden.
In this example, there are two Smart Watering zones highlighted in red:
The Watering Triggers use Smart Watering Adjustments and have been left as default, with both switched on:
The second option, “Use forecast rainfall to delay Smart Watering,” assists with delaying irrigation when rain is predicted. Refer to the example below to see how this is affected when it is turned off.
This is what your watering schedule will look like with these settings are combined with the weather forecast from your selected weather station.
Now if we are to change the watering trigger on the second option to off as shown below:
You will notice when checking your watering schedule that it has been changed to water a day earlier on both zones. This is because the trigger "Use forecast rainfall to delay Smart Watering" is on (this is based on the calculations from the weather station; there is rain predicted on 18th). It has not been scheduled to water on that day, and watering has been pushed to the 19th. However, since we turned off this feature, watering will occur regardless if rain is predicted.
- If you choose to change the watering time, you can always go to the tuning tab on any zone for both Smart Watering and Time-Based Predictive Watering™ to modify watering length as shown below:
Please refer to the link above to gain further understanding of smart watering, if needed. If you have further questions regarding this feature, email us at support@hydrawise.com.
A final note: Although both Smart Watering and time-based Predictive Watering™ achieve similar water savings due to “predictive weather” watering triggers, time-based watering is easier to understand and adjust.