Product
Wi-Fi Connection
Most Wi-Fi connection issues can be resolved by the following steps:
1. Rebooting your WiFi router and your Netro controller can resolve some connection issues.
2. It is possible that your WiFi router is too far away. We recommend a signal of at least 2 bars on your phone.
3. Double check the password. You should enter the password of your home WiFi, not the password of your Netro account. Make sure there is no special character in the WiFi name and password.
4. Create a guest network which is usually hosted at 2.4G only and try to connect the Netro controller with the guest network.
5. Change the WiFi channel from your WiFi router.
6. Make sure the router is not blocking the Netro device.
A few other things to check:
6. Make sure your router has access to the internet and it is not blocking port 1883 which is reserved for MQTT. Try to lower the security settings on the router/firewall.
7. In the app, select WEP mode below the password field if your router is using WEP encryption which is uncommon though.
8. Sometimes rebooting the modem might also help.
9. Use a personal hotspot to test whether the connection issue is with the Netro device or your WiFi system.
Please press the RST button for less than 1 second, make sure Sprite is in host mode and the LED is blinking slowly(once per second).
Please make sure your router is turned on and has a signal of at least 2 bars on your phone at the location where your device is installed. The Netro controller only connects to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi networks. You might also try to reboot your router.
If your app shows the device is offline, your Sprite is unable to connect to your home WiFi (possible causes: 1. your router is down; 2. Wi-Fi signal is weak; 3. the SSID/password is changed) or the router has no access to the internet. If your app shows the device is online, you do not need to do anything. There was a network glitch when the device tried to get the watering schedules from the cloud server. The light will be back to steady when it updates the schedules successfully in an hour. Reboot your sprite (unplug and replug the power) if it does not.
Turning on/off the Zones
Please check the wires. Are they loose or disconnected from the slots? Please also check the common wires and the master valve if you have one. If you believe the wires are correctly installed, please check if there is a main valve/faucet that is turned off manually.
To test if the controller is working properly, use a multimeter (AC voltage mode) to test the voltage between the common wire and the zone wire when the zone is active. Normally the voltage should be between 24V and 28V.
You might also want to check whether there are shorted zones or open zones. You just need to use a multimeter to measure the resistance between the common wire and each zone (remove the wires from the slots before testing the resistance). The normal reading would be 20-60 Ohms. If the reading is less than 10 Ohms then you might have a shorted circuit in the solenoid and if it is larger than 80 Ohms you might have an open circuit.
Unplug the power and check if the water stops. If the water continues, your sprinklers or valves might have some issues. Also, please make sure you are using an AC power adapter instead of a DC power adapter.
There is an electrical component (recoverable fuse) on the circuit board which limits the output current to 750mA. Please check the resistance of the valves and the pump or master valve which should be larger than 20 Ohms.
To measure the resistance of the zone valve, remove the common wire and the zone wire from the slots and set your multimeter to Ω mode.
To measure the resistance of the pump or the master valve, remove the common wire and the M wire from the slots and set your multimeter to Ω mode.
Weather Data
Our Smart Zone system uses an algorithm to determine your yard's moisture level based on weather data from weather stations. In Settings -> Controller, you can choose from the popular weather providers that works best for your local area. In cases where the data that we are providing and your own data is completely inaccurate, please contact us so we can discuss this with our weather vendors.
Smart Watering
Netro prevents water runoff in several ways. For example, it breaks long watering cycles into smaller ones to make water infiltrate the root zones.The Smart Zone system will split up watering schedules depending on your soil and plant inputs. For example, if you have a zone that has clay soil, we split the watering schedule into more pieces up since clay absorbs water more slowly. If your zone grows shrubs or trees which typically have longer roots and absorb water from deeper soil, it takes more runs for the water to reach the deep soil.
When the moisture level drops to a certain level (determined by the plant type), the smart watering will kick in and it will water the moisture level all the way up to full saturation, following the EPA recommendation. That is why you might see longer watering durations than the original settings on your old controller. You can change how often and how much the smart schedules run at your preference in Settings -> Zones -> Choose a zone -> Smart Zone.
The best way to adjust the smart watering is to change the watering mode. If none of the built-in modes satisfies you, you can select the Customized mode to further personalize the watering plan.