Built an app that lets your Rachio respond to actual soil moisture (using Ecowitt sensors)
I was watering my garden with a Rachio smart hose valve and the built-in scheduler last year, but I felt like I never knew if I was over or underwatering. This year I wanted to add Ecowitt moisture sensors, and I immediately thought I should be able to trigger waterings based on the moisture — but I couldn't find any way to connect them, and as far as I could tell, no wireless moisture-based watering product exists at all.
So I built an app (really a web-based tool with mobile optimization for now) that could bridge them. As I started developing it, I figured I could make it into something that anyone could use. It reads the Ecowitt soil moisture, runs the Rachio in short pulses when a bed is dry, checks the soil between cycles, and stops when it's right. You add crops and every crop has a moisture profile which feeds the watering triggers. I've built in a time-based schedule backup in case a sensor goes offline.
It's called Garzed. If anyone who has Rachio or Ecowitt hardware is interested in trying it out in these early months with me, I'm looking for a few people to give me feedback.
Happy to answer questions.
— Brad