Water Lawn when Outdoor Temp Spikes

Posted on
Thu Sep 24, 2015 3:00 pm
dshj offline
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Joined: Jan 16, 2010
Location: San Francisco, CA

Water Lawn when Outdoor Temp Spikes

Hi Community,

I have a setup I want to run by the community and see if I can come up with a better solution. My brain is fried right now, and I'm just drawing a blank.

My current configuration uses Netatmo and the Netatmo plug-in as well as the EZFlora module to control my landscaping. The watering "cycle" takes 50 minutes (25 minutes in front, 25 minutes in back) to complete.

Through various variables and triggers, I have the system set to trigger a day-time watering when the temperature gets to 70 degrees. Upon each increase of 5 degrees, the water "action group" gets triggered again. This all works just fine.

Examples:
netatmo plug-in feeds variable: Outdoor_Temp (via trigger: if change in outdoor temp, set value of var outdoor_temp to value from netatmo)
action group: water lawn (25 min front zone, 25 min back zone)
trigger: if var outdoor_temp changes to > 70, then action group "water lawn"
trigger: if var outdoor_temp changes to > 75, then action group "water lawn"


My problem I recently noticed was that when the temperature spikes quickly, before the cycle is complete, it starts again. This has led to plants in the back area of the yard that desperately need water never getting their full "drink" from the schedule, if at all. They're quickly dying in the heat waves over the last few weeks.

I need to queue up the action so that if a "water lawn" action is triggered, it waits until the cycle is complete to start the next cycle.

I know this is probably easy, and I'm just not thinking clearly right now. Thoughts?

Posted on
Thu Sep 24, 2015 3:50 pm
DaveL17 offline
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Re: Water Lawn when Outdoor Temp Spikes

If I understand, you might be able to cover it with a variable that says "I'm watering right now." You would only trigger the second action if the variable is false.

Set the variable to true, start watering, and set the variable to false when the back is finished.

Dave


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Posted on
Thu Sep 24, 2015 4:33 pm
dshj offline
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Posts: 84
Joined: Jan 16, 2010
Location: San Francisco, CA

Re: Water Lawn when Outdoor Temp Spikes

No, that will essentially eliminate the additional water that the landscaping needs.

So with what you're proposing, it would eliminate the second schedule of watering, only providing the initial 50 minutes, not the full 100 minutes.

I need the system to do this:
Temp above 70? Add "watering" request to queue.
Temp above 75? Add "watering" request to queue.
Temp above 80? Add "watering" request to queue.

Then it just goes through the queue until complete.

Posted on
Thu Sep 24, 2015 5:04 pm
dshj offline
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Posts: 84
Joined: Jan 16, 2010
Location: San Francisco, CA

Re: Water Lawn when Outdoor Temp Spikes

So essentially, I want to add the contents of the Action Group to the schedule. If the Action Group is triggered again, it doesn't activate right away, but it schedules the action to occur after the first "action" is complete. Any subsequent calls for the action would just add to the schedule, not remove or take-place of what's there.

I just don't think this type of thing exists right now, and it might need to be done with some scripting. But again, I'm not thinking clearly on the matter at the moment. :D I could be missing something simple.

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