Check your local Lowe’s. I found some that were $100 off. I have a few I’m going to sell.
I have a Open Sprinkler and have since deleted the plugin as I have had no use for vera integration also.
Not on sale in CO near me.
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I’ve been using my SkyDrop for a few weeks now. So far I like it, tech support is excellent - makes up for some gap in the documentation.
Is it saving me money? not sure.
But it is definitely a cool gadget, the web UI and Android app are very good too. And, of course, MUCH better for custom programming schedules than anything traditional and easy to turn on/off remotely when doing work on the sprinklers/drip system.
Not sure it is worth $300 but I paid about half of that used on ebay and I’d say for $150, totally worth it - maybe $200.
After using this device now for 2 months I can report that my water usage for irrigation went from 8.000 gallons down to 4.000 gallons. With that said my lawn is green with a tint of yellow which recently started to show. I am going to increase my watering duration to address the yellow tinting.
So basically I cut the usage by half from before watering on a fixed schedule every three days down to smart watering when it is needed. The fine tuning what I am going to do next will increase the water consumption but it cannot be that much raising the minutes.
Overall I am happy and pleased with the results especially my county gave me 50% in form of a rebate.
In regards to Vera integration which was on my To Do list I am not sure anymore if this is required. This is a smart watering system and you set it and forget it. I can only see a need from a few uses cases e.g.
- you want to be able to start manual watering for whatever reason
- you want to report to Vera actual usage and water consumption
Open for any other feedback/ideas and/or experiences.
[quote=“Pseudomizer, post:25, topic:187513”]After using this device now for 2 months I can report that my water usage for irrigation went from 8.000 gallons down to 4.000 gallons. With that said my lawn is green with a tint of yellow which recently started to show. I am going to increase my watering duration to address the yellow tinting.
So basically I cut the usage by half from before watering on a fixed schedule every three days down to smart watering when it is needed. The fine tuning what I am going to do next will increase the water consumption but it cannot be that much raising the minutes.
Overall I am happy and pleased with the results especially my county gave me 50% in form of a rebate.
In regards to Vera integration which was on my To Do list I am not sure anymore if this is required. This is a smart watering system and you set it and forget it. I can only see a need from a few uses cases e.g.
- you want to be able to start manual watering for whatever reason
- you want to report to Vera actual usage and water consumption
Open for any other feedback/ideas and/or experiences.[/quote]
Most obvious use case: You have guests over and outside, say a garden party. You don’t want the sprinklers to turn on when Vera is in say “party mode”. So you would temporarily suspend your irrigation controller.
I thought the same thing… but your suposed to run sprinklers early in the morning not at night so the leafs dont stay wet all night.
Then i realized that my sprinklers are set to 5am and im to old to party until 5am.
With my open sprinkler i never have used vera to do anything useful. Plugin is just a waste of ram. I could send http command via a scene or Pleg, but have yet to need that.
Think of the reality vs. The cool factor.
I would like Vera integration for a few basic and useful things…
- Quick way to bypass zones - as mentioned before, in case of guests, party, etc. I run water in early morning but skydrop varies the on/off times… And the grass can be wet well into the afternoon if it is overcast, etc
- Visual indicator of the currently running zone
- Total daily run time tracking for each zone. This would give me a way to record history and calculate/estimate water usage… It also helps figuring out how to tweak the times - if plants are growing too fast, or browning, etc
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I thought the same thing… but your suposed to run sprinklers early in the morning not at night so the leafs dont stay wet all night.
Then i realized that my sprinklers are set to 5am and im to old to party until 5am.
With my open sprinkler i never have used vera to do anything useful. Plugin is just a waste of ram. I could send http command via a scene or Pleg, but have yet to need that.
Think of the reality vs. The cool factor.[/quote]
The reality is that most people are idiots and unaware. I see people all over town running sprinklers in the afternoon when they get home or in the morning. Folks educated on lawn care realize that a good amount of that water just evaporates into the air during daylight hours.
So are you suggesting they are smart enough to buy a smart sprinkler controller, install a Vera, the plugin, and set it up, instead of changing the watering time to an appropriate time which also happens to be when your not partying or need a sprinkler party mode? LOL