As we get more and more automated stuff in our homes centralized control gets to be a better and better idea. I spent 20 minutes yesterday trying to find the control for our irrigation system, nondescript grey boxes are everywhere. Of course that centralized control needs to be done competently.
I just recently got a Rachio smart irrigation system. The physical installation took me 10 minutes. There are no buttons on the panel, it just hooks up to the wifi and everything is controlled thru the app. I even have mine linked up with our Amazon Echo and can command it to “water Zone X for Y minutes” or “don’t water today”...very convenient.
The app interface is great, and when you do the initial setup it asks a series of questions for each zone, such as hours of sunlight per day, lawn slope vs sprinkler head (away from, flat, or towards), soil type, grass type, etc. It can make seasonal adjustments automatically, and it uses data from the nearest weather station to determine whether to skip a scheduled watering if it has already rained (or is expected to rain) that day. I even get an app alert when the water starts and when it finishes, or if it is skipped due to weather. (Any of these features can be overridden.)
I just installed it ~3 weeks ago, but I’m expecting to see big savings...I bet it pays for itself in a year or so!