Home › Community › B-Hyve Indoor/Outdoor Timer › Smart timer just a waste of money????

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Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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  • February 2, 2020 at 6:42 pm #78384
    Carn
    Participant

    This is the bureau of meteorology data for my location on the 1st of February. Note the 27.6mm of rain, or approximately an inch.

    Date/Time Temp App Dew Rel Delta-T Wind Press Press Rain since
    CDT °C Temp Point Hum °C QNH MSL 9am
    °C °C % Dir  Spd Gust Spd Gust hPa hPa mm
    km/h km/h kts kts
    01/09:00am 20.4 19.8 19.8 96 0.4 SW 22 28 12 15 1009.4 1009.4 27.6

    This is my B_Hyve. Even though it went into a 24hr rain delay not a drop was recorded?

    Sa 02/01

    1 0.15 0.05 0.98 0.98 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
    2 0.15 0.04 1.11 1.07 0.14 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
    3 0.15 0.05 0.98 0.98 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
    4 0.15 0.05 0.98 0.98 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

    Of course the timer started watering the day after we had an inch of rain, so what’s the deal?!?!?!?

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    February 4, 2020 at 1:27 am #78385
    ba77hy
    Participant

    I am a little the same on this issue!

    I have my own weather station recording all the data but it would appear that rain delays only work on forecast events, not actual events

    I would much rather be able to set a rain delay if and only if I receive a certain amount of rain! So many times the forecast stated the it was above 90% chance of rain, 40 deg day and yet no rain!! It would be so much better if I could setup stagger rain delays based upon recorded rainfall! ie
    if 5mm recorded delay for 24 hours
    if 30mm recorded delay for 72 hours
    if 100mm recorded delay for 144 hours

    The current system on forecast is way to hit and miss for me! I might have to see if IFTTT or some other scripting will initialise set delays when PWS weather records rainfall ( unless of course Orbit can fix it)

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    February 4, 2020 at 2:59 am #78386
    Carn
    Participant

    Unfortunately I don’t have a weather station and don’t really intend or want to get one because it wouldn’t be easy to set up at my place.

    I tracked this back to the weather station that I was using, the local airport, which for some reason the data is not making through to b-hyve. I have also checked several nearby weather station who also appear not to have their rain recorded, stuff knows why unless it is an inch v mm thing. I have emailed the help line to see if they give something other than an automated response.

    IMO both the app and the data behind it still need a lot more development.

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    February 18, 2020 at 1:32 pm #78403
    Stephen
    Keymaster

    @carn & @ba77hy thank you for bringing these to our attention. I will forward this on to my devs so that we can look into this issue.

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    April 5, 2020 at 11:44 am #78452
    dainiux
    Participant

    Yep, you forward and forward and nothing changes for a years. When will you fix all other errors / bugs? Do you believe you fixed temperature issue, when run time length does not depends on outside temperature? Hell no! Do you believe, lawn needs the same run times, then outside temperature is 30C and 10C ? Your “smart timer” differs from simple time just with possibility to turn it from phone screen.

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    April 28, 2020 at 5:23 pm #78503
    Houston
    Participant

    I am also starting to get frustrated with the Orbit Bhyve solution. Massive amounts of water run in large streams down the street on their way to the drain when the unit is going crazy again and irrigates for hours continuously after days of no irrigation. And all zones are set up with ground type (clay!), angles etc so it should know that water does not drain well into the soil.
    Now I am convinced that this unit has not saved me a drop of water so far but instead consumed way more. And my lawn does not look any better.
    I really wanted this to work and have been messing around with it for a year with continuous overrides/adjustments. Even if I manually set it to rain delay (because it actually rains) it will happily irrigate the next day for a long time.

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    May 15, 2020 at 9:05 am #78539
    Houston
    Participant

    Once again fighting with this device. Forecast is a solid week of rain and this shows in the calendar in the app. But still it decides to turn the sprinklers on for a solid 3 hours (with again the majority of the water ending in the drain)!
    But what is worse is that I can’t even turn it off unless I pull the plug. The app shows that the sprinklers are off while they are clearly on. In the end I found that the web application does know that the sprinklers are on and this way I could intervene.
    The sprinklers were on for 3 hours but nothing shows in the app calendar.
    I have many home automation devices in use but have not seen a device with more bugs than this system. Looks like Orbit sold some early prototypes and forgot to fix things afterwards.

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    May 23, 2020 at 8:11 am #78561
    testonec
    Participant

    I am also frustrated with smart watering. I only use it to disable my programs when we have significant precipitation. But lately, it does not detect rain and auto-delay. Or one of my timers gets in auto delay, but not the other one.

    ALSO, where is the interface that let’s me adjust the precipitation parameters? It used to be present, but now I can’t find it. I’ve looked on the app, on the website and on the beta website.

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    May 28, 2020 at 3:08 pm #78679
    jseymour
    Participant

    Given that we live in some kind of magical spot that storms like to pass (I kid you not–see below) I decided to take a pass on smart watering except for temperature and wind. (I have rain set to 80% expected 1/2 in. or better, which is almost unheard of here.) For rainfall I instead connected a Hunter Mini-Clik rain sensor.

    Not making excuses for Orbit. I, too, am disappointed by their slow-to-non-existent addressing of issues with this device. I’m just relating what works for us.

    Our “magical” location: I have no idea why this is, but we can be right in the bulls-eye of an approaching storm and often as not it will either dodge us entirely or split and go around us to both sides. I’ve even seen them certain to hit us, split, then rejoin once past us. It’s the weirdest thing…

    TESTONEC, the weather parameters are under My B-Hyve -> Devices -> (select device) -> Weather Adjustments

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