Smart Watering - Adjustment and Changes – Hydrawise

This article covers the Smart Watering Adjustment and discusses how changing these settings can affect your watering.

First, as described under features: 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.

NOTE: This calculation occurs in the background and may not always be reflected when checking reports or viewing your Dashboard. However, the feature does work and is reliable even if you can't visibly see these calculations.

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:

NOTE: If you turn off "Use forecast temperature to predict Smart Watering," your Smart Watering zones will not water. This is because all calculations have been switched off, and Smart Watering is calculated using weather data to predict estimated soil moisture balance. You can use this feature when you don't want any watering to occur without having to suspend your Smart Watering zones.

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.

IMPORTANT: Some things to keep in mind when using Smart Watering:

Remember that Smart Watering schedules are based on estimated soil moisture balance and how you specify the watering length and peak watering frequency. Thus, the higher your estimated soil moisture balance, the less likely a smart watering zone will be scheduled to water. More importantly, please remember that Smart Watering only forecasts three days in advance. If there is no watering scheduled during the next three days, you will see Not Scheduled next to Next Run when you highlight over your Smart Watering zone on your dashboard.

- 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 [email protected].

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.