Wyze Sprinkler "Smart Schedule" Questionable

I’m not certain the Smart Schedule of the Wyze Sprinkler is very smart. I’m curious if others have experienced the same concern.

Here’s the situation.

The irrigation specialist who installed and programmed my previous system set it to run 90 minutes twice a week with the individual zone times and cycles shown below. However, the Wyze contoller calculated a “smart schedule” run time of 4 hours, 30 minutes twice a week. That is THREE TIMES the water. Individual zones range from 1.5X to 4X different. I don’t know what the algorithm is doing, and I’ve rechecked all my settings for crop, soil, sun, and square footage.

Driveway - 2 cycles x 6 minutes each cycle = 12 (Wyze calculated 48)
Front Islands 2 x 7 = 14 (Wyze shows 43)
Front Yard 2 x 16 = 32 (Wyze is 45)
Side of House 2 x 6 = 12 (Wyze is 48)
Pool Plants 2 x 10 = 20 (Wyze is 53)

The only way for me to verify is the “tuna can” method to capture the actual amount of water delivered and compare with recommendations of master gardeners at our county horticulture office.

Hello! I wanted to clarify a few things about the smart schedule!

Our agriculture and weather experts suggest longer times because of the “deep watering” concept. If you were to fully maximize plant growth, this allows the water to penetrate all roots. Cycle/soak will rotate in short cycles among the zones to make sure there isn’t flooding during the watering time.

So, Sprinkler Plus is competitive and wants you to have the best plants in the county. But we realize it may not be realistic to simulate the Amazon Rainforest. :slight_smile: Thus, you can adjust the durations to scale down a bit. Do keep me updated on who wins! :house_with_garden:

Thank you @WyzeShanee

I’ve decided to split the difference and use a soil moisture meter which can measure at root level to see whether I’m watering enough.

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@WyzeShanee Is there an order in how to set the data for the zones? It seems that both regular and advanced settings in the soil and crop data speak into the calculations for watering times. So how accurate do those have to be?

In my case (Central Florida) there is not a one fits all data point for most of those so its been hard for me to google terms and meanings and try to translate that into a meaningful entry for the sprinkler controller to then do its thing.

If your location is set correctly in the Wyze app settings, I would put an estimate for those fields, and look at the suggested duration in Smart Schedule. Then, you can scale down the times if needed. You won’t need to set soil moisture because it is largely location-based, and weather skips are based on location too. These have been the most useful indicators for me.

Just went to double check this and there are location options in both the main app settings and also within the sprinkler itself. Verified they were both correct so at least on the right path in that sense.

Speaking of indicators. Any development being done to documentation for this item? For me its been a lot of research into what some terminology refers to and such. Also the visual/written feedback in terms of sensor actions and such. Been keeping a running record myself as I come across things → Sprinkler Feature/Support Request

Thanks for the input!