Frequent, shallow watering encourages a shallow root system. A shallow root system means a lawn is under drought stress when the top inch of soil dries out.

Conversely, deep, infrequent watering during hot, dry weather is important to maintain a healthy lawn. Deep watering encourages the turf to develop a deeper, more extensive root system. The denser root system will make your grass less susceptible to periods of drought. A more dynamic root system will also offer the fringe benefit of discouraging competition from weeds.

To determine how long you have to run your sprinkler or irrigation system, take a flat-bottomed container such as a coffee can and mark off half-inch increments. Place the can or cans where it will be hit by the water, and time how long it takes to gather a half-inch of water. Then run your sprinkler twice as long. You may need to apply water even slower to steep slopes to avoid wasting water to runoff.

Netro's motto when it comes to watering: slowly, deeply, infrequently. Netro's algorithm is based on expert gardening knowledge, one of which is to avoid watering equally everyday and instead to water less frequently but deeply. Netro waters your garden only when the soil is dry enough in order to draw more oxygen into the roots, leading to a lusher landscape. By default, we allow the moisture level to deplete to a lower level before next watering and that is why you might see longer watering duration than the original settings on your old controller.

Netro smart controller gives your lawn the right amount of water, assures that your garden is getting its required amount of water – no more, and no less.

Resources:

Water infrequently, longer for better lawn

http://www.post-gazette.com/life/garden/2009/09/19/Water-infrequently-longer-for-better-lawn/stories/200909190132

Dear all Netro customers,

The long waited new version (3.0.0) of the Netro app is on the horizon. The major improvements of this version are

1. faster in loading data 

2. new manual run interface

3. new home view design

4. more languages supported

We sincerely invite you to join the Beta testing program. Please email to support@netrohome.com or leave a message below if you would like to try the new app. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated !

Thanks,

Netro App Team

The Next-gen Indoor Watering System

Stream is Netro's first indoor watering product. It is specially designed to perform accurate drip irrigation for your potted plants. Stream is packed with many advanced hardware technologies including low-noise pumps, hall-effect flow sensors and long-range WiFi connection. It fits seamlessly into the Netro Eco-system and works with the Netro app.

Stream is now released for pre-order. Learn more at netrohome.com/en/shop/products/stream

Are there any plans to update the Alexa Skill? ... it's over a year and a half since the skill's been released and does need some urgent attention. One being to be able to run a saved program via Alexa and not just one single zone.  Hugely important.  The other (and quite annoying) is how it is coded into your skill to have Alexa ask "what else can I do for you?" over and over (and it is not Alexa but your skill)..this causes freezing on the Echo Show display so even if one does want Alexa to "do" something it does not respond...again, not Alexa, but your skill. Presently, one has to tell Alexa "goodbye" wait for at least a minute, before using my Show for another purpose...I have follow up turned off on all my devices in my Alexa settings.  No other skill causes Alexa to respond this way - freezing and "what else can I do".  It is unnecessary and needs to be removed for the reasons stated.  Can you advise when the skill will be updated?  Many customers, like myself, purchased your controller because of the Alexa compatibility which presently is very minimal.  Not all of us want to whip out a phone to run a program which is why we have Alexa & Google devices in the first place.  The IOS app has been updated, but the Alexa skill sadly has not.  Thank you in advance and eagerly await your reply,  kind regards 

Hello guys,

Thanks to Netro public API, I have developed a plugin for Jeedom which allows us to take control of our great netro devices within this famous home automation system. if you are interested, don't hesitate to take advantage of it, it's free of charge !

Please find the documentation right here for further details : https://kcofoni.github.io/jeedom-docs/plugin-netroarrosage/docs/en_US/

kcofoni

To the Netro community:

We are excited to introduce our new products, the Netro Zigbee Hub and the new smart timer Pixie-Z1. They combined deliver a different experience of smart watering system. 

The Netro Zigbee Hub hosts a long-range local Zigbee network that links all the end devices. It connects to your router (wireless or wired) to transfer data between the end devices and the Netro cloud service. The Hub will work with all our Zigbee products including the new timer Pixie-Z1(introduced below) and the new soil moisture sensor coming this year, as well as the new 4-Zone sprinkler controller and the new weather sensor coming next year.

The new host timer Pixie-Z1 is re-designed from the original Pixie timer in many ways:

1. Always online for instant quick runs. No more sleep mode

2. Powered by two AA alkaline batteries with approximately one year of battery life. Notifications on low battery

3. Supports Google Home and Google Assistant

The Netro Zigbee Hub and Pixie-Z1 are expected to ship in September. To join the Tester program please email to info@netrohome.com and we will send you a discount code in return for feedbacks.

Thanks, 

Netro Inc

Android devices logout issue

 

Recently some android devices (Samsung galaxy S20/21) has battery optimization feature which prevents the app running at back stage. So it will have logout issue.

 

If you smart phone do have this feature, please disable the battery optimization and deep sleep mode in the installation. Put unused apps to sleep.

Check this article for turning off battery optimization

https://nine-faq.9folders.com/articles/8698-how-to-turn-off-battery-optimization-on-the-samsung-galaxy-android-6-7-and-8-devices

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00088422/

Check this article for turning off battery optimization for putting unused apps to sleep. 

https://dontkillmyapp.com/samsung

 

Then close all the apps and reboot your phone to see if it works. 

 

Thanks,

Netro Support

Hi

I am in Poulades, Greece, and the current rain prediction is 67% when reality is there is not a cloud in the sky. BBC predicts rain at 1%. The system wants to water every 3 days which ties up with tje incorrect 67% prediction

I am reporting a problem that has been occurring for a few months. Manual operation fails from time to time for no reason. Before the new version of the app, this never happened.
It is a serious problem

Change the minutes on smart schedule

My pixie sprinkler keels since 24h on status sleeping even if it should go on line twice a day, usually did until yesterday, it does not water nor using programs nor manually. I am far from my home what can I do?

Nice to see improvements with end user in mind. Love the simpler home screen. Found it totally easy to set program for new grass seed for remote site from my bed. I know I sound like an employee but I am really enjoying this app and product.

- indica weed seeds - these will grow into a short, bushy plant with fruity flavors and effects.

- sativa weed seeds - these will grow into a taller, lanky plant with more cerebral effects.

- ruderalis weed seeds - these will grow into a short, bushy plant with potent effects.

The cannabis plant is a flowering plant that is used for both recreational and medical purposes. The plant has been used by humans since the beginning of recorded history. Cannabis use can be traced as far back as 10,000 years ago.

There are many benefits to using cannabis, such as relieving chronic pain, stimulating appetite, reducing nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy, and treating sleep apnea. It is also effective in reducing the symptoms of PTSD and other anxiety disorders.

Cannabis can be consumed in many forms including smoking it or drinking it in tea form. Smoking cannabis has been shown to improve lung function and reduce chronic pain symptoms while drinking it can help with nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy treatment.

Hola les cuento mi experiencia con Netro, trabajo actualmente en el estado de Nueva York, y tengo 500 plantas de bluebery en Chile souh America, y lo controlo desde acá, he tenido excelentes resultados con el sensor de humedad, me hubiese gustado que el sensor fuera más largo, pero con el actual se ha manejado perfecto, también creo que deberían diseñar una caja más robusta para exteriores, estoy muy feliz con la aplicación con el equipo y el sensor. 

La nuova interfaccia fa pena!!!

Per agire in manuale ci ho messo 10 minuti X capirete dove l’avevano messo!!!

È molto meno intuitiva, poi che mi facciano vedere la foto delle piante non importa!!! Manco posso mettere le mie!! 

Dear Netro users,

We are experiencing technical issues with Google Home/Assistant and iOS notifications due to a recent server update. Currently these services are unavailable. All other features in the Netro app and website are working normally.

Our R&D team is working on the solutions with priority and hopefully they will back online in a few days. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks,

Netro Inc

Although that I'm still hoping Netro will start understanding their appliance/app is only a smart part of a smart home ecosystem and start integrating with Home Assistant. Even huge vendors like Tuya, have understood that this is essential for most Home Automation Enthusiast. 

For the time being, some folks have used the API to get some data to home assistant https://community.home-assistant.io/t/netro-integration/51012/13

I believe a lot of us are happy with the appliance, but aren't looking at it often enough. Result in my case at least that my whisperer was out for more than a month. This could have been avoided if we had an integration to Home Assistant who would have alerted me.

So please Netro, do the extra mile !

Biggest pos cant turn on the timer just to water then goes to sleep cant even connect when away never been able use this junk box

So Dissatisfied

UPDATE 8/1/2024

I can confirm that the system is working well. The system forecast about 25mm of rain for yesterday , but we had 34mm based on Weatherflow. This morning, the system had corrected the amount in Netro. Well done to the dev team for rolling out a fix so quickly, once the problem was identified.

I can now say that Netro is a smart watering system!

UPDATE: 5/1/2024

Netro have been fantastic. They have updated their system already to make Weatherflow work as you would expect. However, I am yet to see the results of this.

Rain is anticipated tomorrow (7/1/2024) and the following day.

I will monitor the system to ensure that the correct rainfall amount is in the database early enough for the schedule to be adjusted by their algorithms.

UPDATE: 4/1/2024

I have been working with the Netro techs to isolate the problem.

The issue is that yesterday's rainfall is not being calculated using the local time zone. Instead, it is using UTC midnight to midnight and an offset of 1 day. This means that the data can be 1.5 days out for someone like me who is GMT+11.

There may also be an issue with the timing of when then the rainfall for yesterday is retrieved. The Weatherflow API needs to be called just after nidnight so that the Netro scheduling can adjust, ready for early morning watering.

ORIGINAL:

I thought I would write an article to explain why Netro is not a smart weatherstation.

I have two Netros and 7 Whisperers, and use them in all aspects of watering - to water lawn, vineyard, fruit trees, vegetables and even to fill our bird baths.

But the most frustrating aspect of Netro is that is does not use the correct amount of rainfall, even when connected to a smart weatherstation such as Weatherflow Tempest or WU (I have my Tempest send data to WU).

Why is this a problem? Because the rainfall estimate provided by the forecasting models do not predict how much rain your specific area will receive. They provide two numbers: a percentage chance of receiving rain, and a minimal amount of rain that you will receive, if your receive rain at all. What does this mean?

If the prediction is that you are 60% likely to receive rain of 10mm, this does not mean that you will receive approximately 6mm of rain. It means that you are 60% likely to receive rain and 40% likely to receive no rain at all. If you receive rain, you are then likely to receive a minimum of 10mm.

Netro mistakenly combines these values to tell the system that you received 6mm of rain. And then might not water. This can lead to plants dying, as was our case, when rainfall was predicted every day for a week and we did not receive a drop. Other areas around us received varying amounts of rain.

The frustration is that Netro has a connection to both Weatherflow and to personal weatherstations via Weather Underground, and therefore has no excuse as to not use the correct value of rainfall.

Their solution is to use the Discover feature to correct yesterday's (and today's) rainfall manually. I would recommend 100% to use this feature.

https://netrohome.com/forum/posts/357

Unfortunately, Netro still applies a percentage to the corrected number which means that the amount of rainfall collected is still less than the actual amount received.

I have solved this problem by automating this process via Home Assistant, which knows yesterday's rainfall from my Weatherflow Tempest and sends the value to Netro via their API. This has resulted in a much more intelligent watering regime.

So, to Netro and their techs, well done on a great system, but it won't be truly great until you implement the most important aspect of any smart watering station - the ability to know how much rainfall fell on a client's land, and therefore how much to water.