Why is the Wyze sprinkler so user interface so unfriendly? Software is waaaaay to complicated

I’m trying to configure the Wyze sprinkler to simply turn zone 1 on for 5 mins at 8am, followed by zone 2 for 10 mins, zone 3 or 12 mins etc. The soil type, plant type, shade, hill crap doesn’t work for where I live.

Is there a way I can have the sprinkler zones turn on and off when I want I want them to? If so, can you tell me how?

Thank you

In the controller settings page, click on schedules. From there select create schedule, choose fixed schedule. Name it, choose the zones and their duration, set start time and frequency. Should be it. Very easily done.

Thanks - I’m a bit confused as to why there is a stop time? Does that mean if a scheduled water time is not finished the stop time will override and all watering will stop?

Am I correct you can have more than one schedule active at a time?

It is not both a start AND stop time, its a start OR stop time. You will notice that if you select one and also a second it will negate the first one. In other words you can either have your watering start at X time or the whole watering will end at X time.

You can have multiple fixed schedules as long as they dont overlap an existing fixed schedule yes. I have 8 fixed schedules running at the moment. The smart schedule will only allow you to choose a zone once, so if you have a smart schedule that has every zone in its program you cannot add a second smart schedule.

They sure made this complicated.
So you pick either a start time, and the watering starts at start time and finishes when the time for the last zone in the schedule has finished. OR if you specify the stop time the watering at the stop time minus all the times for all of the zones. It either counts up, or counts down.

When it comes to schedules and zones, one can have multiple schedules. If I scheduled zone 1 to water at 9 am for 15 mins M-Su I could create another schedule with zone 1 being watered M at 10 am for 30 mins, but I can’t activate that schedule because the other one is already active. But what if schedule 2 has zone 2 that’s suppose to turn on after zone 1 does that mean I can’t water it because I can’t activate schedule 2? That would mean I would have to make a third schedule if I want to water zones 1 and 2 starting a 10am.
Seems like it would have been so much simpler to allow the user to specify the start and stop time or start and run time.
Maybe the way to do this is to make 8 schedules with 1 zone in each schedule. Then run all 8 schedules at the same time. But wait, what if you want two watering’s in one day? Is that possible?

Correct.

You should be be able to run zone 1 at 10AM again if its (entire) schedule at 9AM has completed and there is no watering active.

If you have zones that water consecutively I would program them all in the same schedule. Why make a schedule per zone at which time you would have to figure out when watering is over to start the next one?

These can be in the same schedule starting at 10AM, no need to separate them.

This probably would run into the fact that you cant both set run times per zone and also a start/end time. You could have run times that are either longer or shorter than total allotted start/stop time.

Based on your examples above the way I would do this is as follows for example;

  • Schedule 1 Start at 9AM, run Zone 1 for 15 minutes
  • Schedule 2 Start at 10AM, run Zone 1 for 30 minutes, Zone 2 for XX minutes
  • Schedule 3 Start at XXPM. Run Zone 1 for XX minutes, Zone 2 for XX minutes, Zone 3 for XX minutes, etc

The way to think about this seems to be what zones you want to schedule watering for how long at a specific time. Instead of run time by zone and trying to schedule those.

So for me in the early morning it runs all my backyard zones and finishes by sunrise based on the known total run time from the individual zone settings. Then starting at sunrise it switches to all my front yard zones. I have one of the front zones that gets an additional run at 11AM thats on its own schedule. Then same at night, run front yard zones and finish by 10PM, start backyard zones and start at 10PM.

The way to think about this seems to be what zones you want to schedule watering for how long at a specific time. Instead of run time by zone and trying to schedule those.

  • Schedule 1 Start at 9AM, run Zone 1 for 15 minutes
  • Schedule 2 Start at 10AM, run Zone 1 for 30 minutes, Zone 2 for XX minutes
  • Schedule 3 Start at XXPM. Run Zone 1 for XX minutes, Zone 2 for XX minutes, Zone 3 for XX minutes, etc

Are all of theses schedules running at the same time? I thought you said once you have a zone in a schedule that’s active another schedule with that zone can’t be active.

If I’m following you it sounds like what you are saying is to use the schedules as “containers”. Specify the start time of the container. Then add the zones TO the container with the run times.

So I could have Schedule 1 start at 8am run zones 1-8 for 2 mins each. Then have schedule 2 with start time of 9am with odd zones for 2 mins. each. Same idea for schedules 3, 4, 5 etc.

Is this the way to look at it?

Yes they are all active Fixed schedules. Where I think the current confusion is where I mentioned you can only have a zone represented once in a Smart schedule. Within Fixed schedules you can implement zones multiple times as long as schedules dont overlap.

Yes that is certainly a way to look at it and it would work. As long as the schedules dont overlap you can run as much as you want.