Netro Home Irrigation FAQ

I am developing a plug in for the netrohome irrigation controllers and plant sensors that will hopefully answer some questions and help understand the product and the plugin functionality.

Why Netrohome

I originally decided on Netro for a number of reasons.

- Availability outside of the US. There is limited options for smart controllers outside of the US, and Netro support and ship theirs to UK and Europe
- Soil sensors. Whilst most smart irrigation controllers connect to the internet for weather forecasts, or can use a local weather station, that still cant determine how much rain a flowebed receives due to any number of factors: wind, fences, tree cover (differs with leaves or without), in ground flowerbeds, raised beds, type of soil etc. Whilst Netro does that, it also has wireless (wifi) soil sensors that detect the actual moisture in the soil and can learn the how fast the soil dries along with the impact of watering to set smart schedules.
- Cost. These came in less than trying to source a Rachio3 or similar, which was a positive. Some of that was due to a new product and teething problems they had with the initial controllers and sensors, but they have a new controller out and an updated sensor with USB charging which are hopefully improving things.

What can the plug in do

1. Read the status of the controller, sprinkler zones, upcoming schedules and plant sensors

2. Control the controller, ie turn it on and off in order to pause or winterise the system

3. Activate watering on any zone or combination of zones.

4. Stop the current watering schedule

5. Pause all upcoming schedules for today and next x days

6. Update the moisture level for a given zone in the system, if you have manually watered for instance, so that it doesnt then re-water. Useful if no sensor is used in that bed.

7. Manually update weather conditions for the controller. Useful if you have your own weather station and would rather use that then the internet provided sources.

Do I need an irrigation controller to use the Whisperer plant sensors

No. Whilst I do have a controller, I also use a sensor in standalone mode and it appears in my app unlinked to my controller. This means it can be a useful alternative to the wired options that otherwise exist for other systems, or for manual monitoring.

Further details
Please see here for details of the API
https://www.netrohome.com/en/shop/articles/10

And here for details of the devices.
https://www.netrohome.com/en/shop/index