Rachio at WaterSmart Innovations 2015 in Las Vegas

Rachio will be at the WaterSmart Innovations 2015 conference, located in Las Vegas.

We will be at booth 321.

Come see us! We would love to chat.

EPA WaterSense versus SWAT

If you are an irrigation or water nerd like us, you've heard of the two major types of water efficiency programs: WaterSense and SWAT. But what are the differences?

First, a bit of historical context.

SWAT History

SWAT, or Smart Water Application Technologies, an initiative of the Irrigation Association (IA), is a national partnership of water purveyors and irrigation industry representatives that began in 2002. Stakeholders developed SWAT testing protocols to assess and document product performance in order to better promote water-efficient technologies. Testing protocols have been developed for products like weather-based irrigation controllers and rain sensors. Water utilities rely on SWAT testing protocols because they provide credible, independent product testing data that validates the water-saving potential of irrigation technologies. To become SWAT tested, the manufacturer must pay for the testing. When SWAT was created, many municipalities used it as a basis for offering rebates on efficient products.

WaterSense History

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created WaterSense in 2006 as the water equivalent of EnergyStar, a voluntary program to promote the efficient use of water. WaterSense is also a broader program, as it covers non-irrigation products like toilets and showerheads. Like SWAT, many municipalities offer rebates on water bills for WaterSense certified products.

The Differences

In broad terms, SWAT came first, and WaterSense adopted SWAT's testing protocols with a few minor changes.

• Testing versus certification. A product can be WaterSense certified based upon meeting certain requirements. However, WaterSense does not provide the complete testing results. SWAT, on the other hand, does not provide certification. Instead, SWAT reports performance of products without judgment, releasing results to the public. In other words, WaterSense is a pass/fail certification, while SWAT releases complete testing results for buyers to review themselves. 
• Minimum runtimes. WaterSense added minimum run times so that sprinklers will apply a minimum amount of water that will soak into the soil. 
• Missing data from the reference weather station. Adds requirements to compensate when there is missing weather data. 
• Rainfall requirement. WaterSense added a requirement that there be at least 4 individual days with 0.10 inches or more of gross rainfall. This tests how the controller handles rain. 
• Order of operations in calculating the water balance. Because these programs are for weather-based or evapotranspiration (ET) controllers, calculating when irrigation needs to occur is a major concern. SWAT calculates the water balance in the following order: ET, rainfall, and then irrigation. WaterSense changed the calculation to the following: ET, irrigation, and then rainfall. SWAT’s approach is to maximize the benefit of rainfall first, then add irrigation. 

What does this mean in practice?

The differences between SWAT and WaterSense largely come from the fact that WaterSense was tested in Florida, where it rains regularly. This meant they could not properly test products without removing rainfall largely from the equation, particularly future rainfall. As such, WaterSense controllers do not account for future rain; only how it handles irrigation after a rainfall.

Take the situation where an irrigation schedule is supposed to run at 4pm, but rain is forecasted to occur at 10pm. A controller that irrigated at 4pm would likely pass EPA certification, but receive low scores from SWAT as the controller didn’t account for future rainfall and skip the scheduled irrigation event.

What This Means For You

With competing testing protocols, it can be confusing to know which one to trust. However, here are some guidelines:

• Both programs signal a water efficient product. Because they are based on roughly the same protocols, both programs are excellent. 
• Check with your water provider for available rebates. While saving water by itself is admirable, if you are going to pay for new hardware, make sure to see if you can save money on your purchases as well. 
• Although SWAT came first, WaterSense has overtaken it as the most popular program for testing the validity of manufacturers’ water saving claims. This is likely due to the wider range of products that WaterSense covers, as well as WaterSense being created by the EPA, a well-known government agency. 
• While WaterSense is currently more popular, water municipalities in the west have a higher likelihood of offering rebates based on SWAT. 

Water and Sewage Costs Projected To Rise Significantly

An article by Professor Janice Beecher of the Michigan State University's Institute of Public Utilities recently caught our eye. In this article, Professor Beecher compiled data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics about the costs over time associated with utilities, like electricity, natural gas, and water/sewage services. This is publicly available data, which by itself is fascinating to review, but it is particularly relevant for those interested in the price of water.

The graph says it all.

As you can see from the image below, water & sewer costs are projected to rise significantly over the next five years. Since 1983, average water & sewer costs have risen 4.5x, and are projected to be 6.4x by 2020. Furthermore, this is far, far greater than the expected increase in other utilities, or general inflation itself. The 10 year average (2004-2014) of annual change in CPI for water & sewer is roughly the same as college tuition, and we all know how fast college tuition is rising.

Water as a natural resource is something we all know is very valuable. However, water has generally been priced very low. According to this data, that is changing rapidly.

Rachio Recycles!

Rachio has partnered with BlueStarRecyclers, a local electronics recycling firm based here in Denver, to offer recycling of your old controller. Rachio will cover the cost of recycling.

Just send your old controller to us, and we’ll handle the rest. Please send your old controller to us at the following address:

Rachio
Attn: Controller Recycling
2040 Larimer St
Denver, CO 80205

While we are passionate about saving water, we are also passionate about the environment, and we would like to avoid producing waste when you upgrade your existing controller. It’s the Rachio thing to do.

We are thrilled to be able to work with BlueStarRecyclers for many reasons:

• They are a local recycler, cutting down on shipping costs.
• They are an e-Stewards certified electronics recycler.
• They are a 501c3 Social Enterprise, focused on creating local jobs for people with disAbilities.

If you’d like to learn more about the awesome work BlueStarRecyclers does, please check them out. They've got a great Facebook page as well.

Rachio plus Muzzley

Rachio is pleased to announce our newest integration with Muzzley.

Muzzley is an app that gathers all of your connected devices and puts them to work together in an intuitive way. The app allows connected devices of different brands to communicate with and respond to each other.

Muzzley is available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

Welcome Muzzley to the Rachio integrations family!

Rachio plus Nexia Home Intelligence

Rachio is pleased to announce that we are now integrated with Nexia Home Intelligence, a brand of Ingersoll Rand.

“Homeowners should be able to manage their water consumption as easily as they control their television,” said Brian Ewing, Rachio sales and marketing. "By partnering with Nexia, our marketplace has expanded considerably and with water conservation an expanding issue, we can help consumers protect one of our most precious resources while helping them to maintain their beautiful landscape.”

This exciting integration allows Nexia users to use all the benefits of Rachio's intelligent irrigation controller through Nexia Automations.

“As we constantly expand Nexia’s capabilities, our support of Iro as a Nexia-certified device gives our users more ways to save money and keep their home running at its most efficient,” said George Land, head of Nexia™ Home Intelligence. “We already provide users more ways than ever to monitor and control their home from anywhere in the world – and now we’re extending that reliability and flexibility out into the yard.”

For Nexia users, you can connect a Rachio Iro to your system through MyNexia.

Rachio 2.1 Released With Soil Moisture Graph

Just released: the Rachio app version 2.1 for both iOS and Android.

Check your respective stores to download.

What's new?

With the 2.1 release, we have added the ability to view moisture levels by zone, as well as to view a graph of moisture levels over time. It's really awesome. This mirrors what exists currently in the Web App.

For example, when you select a zone, it will tell you the current moisture level.

If you click the moisture level, you can see a visualization of the moisture level over time.

Click on one of the points, and it will tell you the exact moisture balance for that day, plus whether it ran a schedule.






We hope you like it! If you have any feedback, please let us know in our community forum.