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More Advanced Rules for Soil Conditions

A project log for Sprinkler Switch

A web-enabled extension to your home lawn irrigation controller that intelligently enables or disables your sprinkler system.

deckeregoDeckerEgo 09/21/2024 at 20:450 Comments

Reading up on evaporation in suburban soils versus transpiration rates in turf grass made me realize - this ain't as simple as checking a rain meter!

I've updated SprinklerSwitch to take in a huge number of additional values from NOAA, from which we now calculate two different "facts" for consideration when determining if we should irrigate the lawn or not:

1. If rain is likely to occur tomorrow, or

2. If the soil evaporation rate is likely to be lower than the amount of rain precipitated

Possible future precipitation is based on threshold values for precipitable water and cloud water, while evaporation is calculated based on specific humidity, ground temperature, and wind speed. A "turf nerf" percentage is applied to the evaporation rate to determine how quickly moisture would leave the lawn given complete turf grass coverage.

So far things are working! In my tests I'm seeing the irrigation system being correctly shut down when rains arrive. More testing is needed, but I've pushed these changes out as the latest release.

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