Garden Irrigation System - Rainbird or SonOff?

[xefil (Simon)]

Hi to all,
I’m ready to setup a irrigation system that work with HA. The question is, what works so far good and could be not to much expensive?
I’m in doubt between:

RainBird with it’s own WiFi and an additional rain sensor

OR

SonOff relays with an additional Rain sensor. An example could be the water sensor from Xiaomi. I’ve still a zigbee network here.

I would avoid that all stops to work if there is no internet: both should be ok
I would avoid that all stops to work if HA is offline: SonOff works with the push buttons on it
I would like that everyone could start stop the system easly: SonOff not so friendly, I mean, I need to push a button and then push it back as soon I would stop it. HA with a browser or app is easier.
I would like it’s not so expensive: SonOff wins, it’s cheaper.

What do you suggest?

The garden system will be installed in the next weeks, so I only need to decide weather ask for the Rainbird or not. The rainbird or sonoff module would be installed into the house, then cables would go outside.

Suggestions and experiences?

Thanks a lot!

Simon

[petro]

I have a Rainbird. I don’t even bother adding it to HA because the built in automation handles everything.

Also, it looks like the Rainbird integration is mediocre but I haven’t played with it yet. Also, you can’t use the app when the rainbird integration is active.

[xefil (Simon)]

Ok, thank you!
Any experiences with the other solution someone?
Thanks!
Simon

[sparkydave (🇦🇺 Dave)]

I use a NodeMCU (ESP8266) running ESPhome with some relays attached. Currently my setup relies on a connection to HA so doesn’t quite meet your requirements but that can be changed. I did look into moving the automations and timing to code on the ESP itself and using MQTT to update the variables but gave up after a while because it seemed like too much effort to mitigate a wifi issue which shouldn’t be there in the first place.
It has been working perfectly for over a year. I have it coded to not water if it rained yesterday or is likely to rain today / has rained today, all with adjustable tolerances.

[xefil (Simon)]

Thanks @sparkydave for sharing your experience.

[parautenbach (Pieter Rautenbach)]

Could you share a Github link to your setup? I’m about to do something similar and would like to see how you’ve implemented this.

[reotto (Rick Otto)]

I have rainbird as well. I have all my zones, rain sensor, and rain delay integrated with HA. I do not use HA for any of my sprinkler automations for a few reasons. First off Rainbird has a seasonal adjust feature which adjusts the amount of water dispersed based on local weather conditions. Second, it has the rain Sensor delay features. Lastly, I use a cyclical watering schedule, every 2 days.

I could easily accomplish the second and third with HA Automations, but I have yet to wrap my head around the seasonal adjust.

[andie_will5]

There are quite a few irrigation packages out there, but my favourites are sparky daves and Kloggs below…

kloggy/HA-Irrigation-Version2

[sparkydave (🇦🇺 Dave)]

My code is on this forum but it’s old and out of date so I won’t bother linking to that. I’ll upload the current version to Github shortly and link it here for you.

Klogg’s is good but rather complicated. I went with a simpler approach with fixed watering durations but using weather data to determine if watering should occur or not and that’s it. If you want variable watering duration based on rainfall then Klogg’s is the way to go. I may look at using his version on the future…if I get time

[xefil (Simon)]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I’ll start looking to @klogg’s solution, seems great!

Cheers, Simon

[sparkydave (🇦🇺 Dave)]

I’ve just uploaded the Home Assistant code for my irrigation system. It still includes a heap of commented out code which I have left for my own reference.

I’ll upload the ESPhome stuff soon to a new repo.

[parautenbach (Pieter Rautenbach)]

Thanks a mil, @sparkydave! I’ll install my Sonoff 4CH Pro soon and this will be tremendously helpful.

[remsta (Remi)]

@sparkydave This looks awesome but I am unsure exactly how to get this working in HA. I am trying to set this up for my parents in Adelaide and am new to HA. I have managed to install a customer package under Custom_Components with a config line in the configuration.yaml but your code seems to be next level.

Do you have any installation instruction on how to get this running on my HA, potentially together with the card which this guy put together? I love how you are grabbing weather data from BOM.

r/homeassistant - Rainbird irrigation Lovelace view

Thanks a lot

[sparkydave (🇦🇺 Dave)]

My code is a ‘package’, not a custom component. You need to create a folder under config for your packages and put my code in a yaml file within that.
eg:
//config/packages/irrigation.yaml

…then put an !include in your configuration.yaml to link to that folder. Note that this !include needs to be under the homeassistant: section.

eg:

homeassistant:
  packages: !include_dir_named packages

I have since made some tweeks tothe code and I’m actually hoping to update my code again this coming week if I get time.

I’ll also post my lovelace code and example screenshot along with my ESPhome code (which is something else I’m considering re-writing…)

[remsta (Remi)]

@sparkydave This is awesome, thank you so much for the more detailed explanation, I will be able to handle that! Ok, I will wait a few days for you to get the new code out and I look forward to it - thank you so much, this is amazing stuff

[remsta (Remi)]

@sparkydave I am not really sure I have done this correctly.

I have a folder under config already called \config\custom_components\ that is where I have custom code for my fireplaces. Then under the confirguration.yaml I have a line entry

climate:

• platform: escea

Can I just add another line here for yours? I went ahead and created a new folder called packages as indicated, I copied your code from above, put it into Sublime and saved it as irrigation.yaml. I moved it into the folder I created under \config\packages\irrigation.yaml

I added your code as you can see in the image, is this correct?

Also, once it is added, how do I add it as a component to the dashboard, is that the Lovelace code?

Lastly, this works directly with the RainBird LNK Wifi module right? I do not need any other hardware.

Thank you!

[sparkydave (🇦🇺 Dave)]

I’ve posted my current config for this irrigation. It hasn’t yet been cleaned up and had the additional weather parameters included but I’ll see how I go getting that done this week.

sparkydave1981/HomeAssistant-Config-Public/blob/5ca70a915e6ad0bcd6c3b39702b7a859698ae8ba/packages/reticulation.yaml

@remsta

I have a folder under config already called \config\custom_components\ that is where I have custom code for my fireplaces. Then under the confirguration.yaml I have a line entry

climate:

• platform: escea

Can I just add another line here for yours?

NO, This is NOT a custom_component, it’s just a package of yaml code.

@remsta

I added your code as you can see in the image, is this correct?

No, you need to do it exactly as me example above.

@remsta

Also, once it is added, how do I add it as a component to the dashboard

This is not a component. You will need to edit the code in the irrigation.yaml file to suit your entity_id’s for the valves (switch entities).

The rest is done via Lovelace using the below as an example, again, changing the entities to suit your config.

sparkydave1981/HomeAssistant-Config-Public/blob/5ca70a915e6ad0bcd6c3b39702b7a859698ae8ba/reticulation_lovelace_page.yaml