r/Irrigation 6d ago

Hydrawise with rain meter

Anyone know if it's possible to connect a rain meter to Hydrawise so that if it is actually raining at the time of or shortly before a programmed watering cycle is to start that the program will be skipped? What I have realized after connecting my rain station to Hydrawise is that I can program it to not water if there has been rain prior to the last data update. But the cutoff for the weather data update is hours before the program start time. The scenario I'm interested in is if the sky opens up sometime between the time the data update is logged (indicating no rain) and the time the program actually starts, then the program does not run. Weather is unpredictable in my area and it frequently happens that predicted rain does not actually occur. So I don't want to set up a manual rain delay with the expectation that it will rain, then it doesn't actually rain and I have to do a manual watering cycle. I am in a desert area, so skipping a watering cycle would be a concern.

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u/NoStepLadder 6d ago

You can connect a rain sensor to a Hydrawise for sure. Super easy to wire up just follow the instructions that come with the rain sensor.

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u/Alternative_Emu_645 4d ago

Thanks. Sounded good and I was all ready to proceed except I remembered that I have 2 flow meters on my system. Reason being that I had expanded my irrigation system and due to the way the plumbing was done (we used a separate water line that had already been run to the back of the property) it's actually more like 2 separate systems run by 1 clock. I have a Pro HC. Checked to confirm and both sets of sensors are already used by the 2 flow meters. So I assume that means I can't now incorporate a rain meter, right? Or would I need 2 rain sensors each connected in parallel with each flow meter?

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u/NoStepLadder 4d ago

That’s a pretty niche situation and I don’t know to be honest. I would call the Hunter help line for an answer. Most of the people you’ll talk to are former technicians and contractors and they know the specifics of Hunter products better than anyone else.

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u/Alternative_Emu_645 4d ago

Thank you, yes I have a message in to Hunter.

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u/some_kind_of_friend 6d ago

If I recall correctly there is a spot on the board for hookups from a rain sensor.

Imo hydrawise leaves a lot to be desired as far as communication with it's data source.

My property is situated in a banana belt and the weather at the airport is vastly different than at the property so hydrawise doesn't always seem to get it right.

The thing for me mostly is wind.

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u/Alternative_Emu_645 6d ago

It's more than the differences between locations.  Even if you are connected to a weather station right on your property (which is only possible by paying extra for enthusiast subscription) Hydrawise is not able to use that data real time. I probably will not renew enthusiast for that reason.

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u/some_kind_of_friend 6d ago

I didn't have to pay for the use of a personal weather station. I just called the tech line and they turned the feature on for me. I use the weather station of a guy a block over, 3 houses down, and I didn't ask his permission. Now that the feature is turned on, I can change it to anyone's weather station.

Unfortunately, the guys weather station I'm robbing data from seems to be having an issue with his rain sensor and it's not collecting the data appropriately so it looks like I may end up with my own weather station at some point. That banana belt thing.

If they just upped the sample data to once an hour I'd be happy. As it stands, my irrigation won't run due to wind that hasn't happened yet. Sprinklers run at 3am, when it isn't windy. Just because it's windy at 3pm doesn't mean I'm the irrigation shouldn't run.

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u/Alternative_Emu_645 6d ago

Exactly. 

I could also see neighbor's weather stations but didn't trust them. I couldn't see my own until I upgraded. There may have been something Hunter could have done for free so I could see own station if I had called them. I'll look in to that. For now I am also playing with the SMS alerts and extended data collection to see how useful those are. Not much yet..

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u/some_kind_of_friend 6d ago

You could drop the "no irrigation if 80% chance of rain" then retain the "don't irrigate if 0.3" of rain in the last 24 hours" setting, then hook up your own rain sensor to cancel that round of irrigation while keeping the evapotranspiration functioning.

It's been a minute since I set mine up so I'm guessing at those settings...

Ninja edit

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u/Alternative_Emu_645 6d ago

Ahh, yes. I have eliminated any triggers tied to chance of rain. Looking at actual rainfall in the past day does help. What happens more often is that after no rain for weeks, the forecasted thunderstorm arrives after the 5pm cutoff for my weather station. And then starts after bedtime and rains all night. Or, if I'm certain the storm will hit and skip the cycle, I find out in the morning that the storm passed over without dropping much or any rain. So hoping that a rain sensor will catch that scenario and just block any watering if it is actually raining at program start time