Shifting past its roots in kitchen and bathtub fixtures, Moen lately launched its Good Sprinkler Controller line for the residential irrigation market. In our Digitized Home sensible dwelling, we reviewed the 16-zone model of the controller coupled with 4 of the in-ground Moen Good Wi-fi Soil Sensors. The outcomes of our in-depth evaluate follows.
Evaluation Abstract
Out of the Field
Out of the field, the Moen controller bears a resemblance to an earlier model of the B-hyve controller resulting from its squarish design. And just like the Rachio line of controllers, it has a magnetic cowl that snaps into place. The twin magnets within the Moen play a secondary position as properly, in that they’re used throughout activation of the corporate’s Good Wi-fi Soil Sensors (extra on that integration later on this article).
The Moen controller is designed for inside wall set up, and must be situated close to {an electrical} outlet for connection of the included energy adapter. A weatherproof outside enclosure is offered from Moen as an adjunct within the occasion your controller must be mounted outdoors.
All communication with the controller is finished by the Moen Good Water app in your smartphone. This can be a hub for what the corporate refers to because the Moen Good Water Community. Along with the Good Sprinkler Controller and Good Wi-fi Soil Sensors, the app can have tiles for all Moen sensible water merchandise within the dwelling. This consists of sensible kitchen and bathtub fixtures, in addition to water safety merchandise such because the Flo Good Water Monitor and Shutoff and the Good Sump Pump Monitor.
Set up and Preliminary Setup
Generally, the Moen controller might be changing a regular irrigation timer/controller. Moen makes that assumption, and the app’s wizard does a very good job of strolling you thru the method. This consists of organising a Moen account in the event you don’t have already got one, registering the gadget by scanning a QR code on the controller, mounting the controller on the wall, getting all the wires related, and connecting to your Wi-Fi community.
They embody a set of stick-on wiring labels that can be utilized to establish all the wires hooked up to the unique controller, a good suggestion if the wires weren’t beforehand labeled. It’s additionally a good suggestion to snap pictures of the previous controller’s wiring connections for all the zones and any equipment (reminiscent of a rain sensor or move meter) so it may be used as a reference if wanted when reattaching every little thing to the Moen controller. Moen makes use of normal screw terminals to safe the wires.
When preliminary setup and wiring attachments are accomplished, a zone detection characteristic is used to detect the irrigation zones. The zones will then seem within the Zones tab within the app, and the LED mild bar on the controller illuminates in inexperienced, indicating it’s on-line. All the remainder of the setup work is finished via the app.
Customizing Zones and Setting Automation Schedules
Irrigation zones may be personalized so as to add a descriptive zone identify, vegetation kind, solar publicity, soil kind, floor slope, and sprinkler head kind by tapping the Zone Particulars button. A photograph may also be added straight by your cellphone’s digicam or from its picture library to assist establish the zone, although we discovered getting the pictures to “stick” with the zone was problematic. Typically it took a number of tries to get the picture to save lots of with the zone. Zones may also be enabled or disabled by way of the Zone Standing button on every zone.
For essentially the most fundamental automation, Schedules may be set as much as automate the operation of a number of zones on particular frequencies, begin occasions, and durations. Do take into account that if particular zones are disabled within the app, you can be unable so as to add them to a schedule. Schedules containing a number of zones will water the zones in succession primarily based on the order you set.
For instance, for our schedule named Left Beds Thurs, we chosen solely the Left Facet Shrubs zone then configured it to water as soon as per week on Tuesdays starting at 8:25 AM with a period of 45 minutes. That is all you actually need to do to create a fundamental schedule and automate its irrigation going ahead.
Sometimes, you’ll want to create schedules for teams of zones primarily based on the vegetation kind and sprinkler head kind (say, one schedule for turf grasses with normal spray heads, one other for turf grasses with rotor heads, and one more for shrubs with drip irrigation strains).
As soon as a Schedule is created, it seems on the Schedules tab and can run mechanically primarily based on its settings. Schedules may also be enabled or disabled by the Allow Schedule slide swap on every zone, and may all the time be run manually by tapping the Handbook Run Schedule button.
In case your municipality has particular watering restriction laws, you’ll be able to simply customise any schedule to adjust to them by adjusting the settings in Schedule Particulars web page. As an example, if you’re solely allowed to water twice per week on Tuesdays and Saturdays and should end earlier than 7:00 AM, that may be achieved by setting the frequency to Tue and Sat, then adjusting the run time to finish earlier than 07:00.
When a handbook zone run or automated schedule run begins, the inexperienced LED on the controller pulsates. Moreover, a standing block seems on the Overview display screen with the Schedule or Zone identify, accompanied by a progress bar indicating the remaining time. And if smartphone notifications are turned on, standing updates may be delivered because the run progresses.
Schedule Skips by way of Climate Automation
Since it’s a sensible sprinkler controller, Moen gives a number of methods so as to add extra intelligence to your panorama irrigation routine primarily based on the climate. Most likely one of the best ways to try this is to configure the app to get realtime situations from a close-by nationwide or private climate station then activate the Climate Primarily based Skips characteristic in every zone the place you need it.
These climate stations may be chosen straight throughout the Moen Good Water app, and should have their knowledge revealed to the worldwide PWS Climate community. When the Climate characteristic is activated, the Moen app will default to the PWS Climate station closest to your own home’s location, although you’ll be able to choose others from the checklist that pops up. And, the nearer the higher for essentially the most correct knowledge.
In our case on the Digitized Home labs, we now have a Davis Devices climate station publishing to the PWS Climate community on web site right here in Texas named KTXLIBER205. We configured the Moen app to get its climate from this station.
This strategy to hyperlocal climate allows Schedules to be skipped predicated on precise rainfall accumulation (primarily based on rainfall in the present day, 2-day, 4-day, or 7-day metrics), rain probability proportion, minimal temperature, and even wind velocity. The thresholds for these parameters are adjustable within the app and apply globally, although the Climate Primarily based Skips characteristic may be turned on or off throughout the settings for a given Schedule.
For instance, we didn’t wish to irrigate when the wind was blowing over 20 MPH, so we set the Wind Pace parameter to twenty MPH. Going ahead, any Schedule slated to run on a blustery day with winds over 20 MPH might be skipped, thereby saving water. See the picture under for extra.
Schedule Skips by way of Good Wi-fi Soil Sensors
Distinctive amongst residential sensible sprinkler controllers, the Moen Good Wi-fi Soil Sensors provide a compelling possibility for extra deeply automating your irrigation routines. These fully wi-fi, spade-shaped, in-ground sensors pair with the Moen controller and are linked to a number of zones.
As soon as within the floor, they monitor the soil moisture at depths of 1-in., 3-in., and 5-in. whereas additionally measuring floor temperature. Then, they’ll relay their metrics again to the controller and Schedules to find out if the zone (or zones) needs to be watered or skipped primarily based on the moisture and temperature thresholds in that particular soil sensor.
Including a Moen Good Wi-fi Soil Sensor to the sprinkler controller is a simple course of, however plan forward to make sure your Wi-Fi entry factors or routers have enough sign power within the irrigation zones the place you propose to put in them. For bigger yards, it’s possible you’ll want a Wi-Fi extender, and for the most important yards a mesh Wi-Fi surroundings with a number of routers like these out there from eero could also be one of the best wager.
Pairing and Putting in Soil Sensors
Every soil sensor have to be individually paired with the Moen controller, an easy-enough course of achieved by merely tapping the top of the sensor in opposition to one of many magnets on the face of the controller and following the prompts within the Moen Good Water app to get it added. You might should be affected person with this course of, since we discovered it usually took a number of tries to get a sensor paired. In some circumstances, a manufacturing facility reset on the sensor could also be wanted to get it to pair, a course of properly documented on the Moen web site.
As we paired our 4 soil sensors, we added stick-on labels to them so they’d be simpler to establish as soon as they have been within the floor.
Resist the urge to make use of a hammer to drive the sensors into the bottom, since these are digital gadgets with onboard microchips, wi-fi radios, and batteries. When you’re unable to push them into the bottom by hand, douse the world with just a few gallons of water to melt the soil. A backyard spade additionally works properly to carve out an applicable crevice earlier than pushing the sensor into its remaining resting place. Moen recommends the sensor be buried such that the highest of the sensor is flush with the bottom.
After you’ve gotten paired a number of soil sensors, they’ll seem on the Sensors tab within the Moen app. As soon as they acclimate to the soil, they’ll refresh their knowledge within the app each 10 to fifteen minutes.
Detailed knowledge on every sensor is accessible from the Sensors tab. This features a snapshot standing tile for every sensor with floor moisture percentages on the 1-in., 3-in., and 5-in. depths plus the bottom temperature. One click on down, battery degree and community sign power meters can be found, in addition to 7-day historical past charts for every of the moisture and temperature parameters.
Zone Automation with Soil Sensors
For zone automation utilizing soil sensors, every sensor must be related to a number of irrigation zones. That is achieved from the Zones tab, by deciding on a Zone then tapping the +Sensor button to pick one of many out there soil sensors. As soon as that’s achieved, the moisture and temperature knowledge from the chosen sensor will seem on the Zone element web page under the picture.
Particular thresholds for the chosen soil sensor may be personalized on a per zone foundation by tapping the Soil Sensor Thresholds hyperlink on the main points web page. You may elect to just accept the default thresholds for temperature plus moisture degree on the 1-in, 3-in. and 5-in. depths, or modify them as desired.
When you faucet Save Thresholds, these parameters might be utilized going ahead to the zone, whether or not it’s run manually or from a Schedule. This might be used to find out if the zone ought to run usually or be skipped for a given schedule or perhaps a handbook run.
Schedules Skips, Seasonal Changes, and Cycle/Soak
For a given Schedule, tapping the Schedule Particulars then the Advance Particulars hyperlink allows the sensible options to be turned on or off individually. These embody Climate Primarily based Skips, Soil Sensor Primarily based Skips, Seasonal Changes, and Cycle/Soak.
Schedule skips may be triggered by climate situations, soil sensors, or rain sensors. All three of them may be in impact directly and might be checked by the controller earlier than a schedule or handbook run begins.
For the Seasonal Changes, these settings allow computerized adjustment in watering durations for all zones primarily based on the month of the yr (see middle picture above). Sadly, they’re arduous to seek out since they’re buried deep on the backside of the Climate settings particulars web page.
Cycle/Soak is one other good characteristic that may allow extra water saving. If this international setting is turned on, intermittent delays happen throughout all zone runs to allow the water to be extra slowly absorbed by the panorama to encourage deeper roots and to keep away from extra runoff (notably with sloped areas). Remember that this characteristic will considerably prolong the whole time {that a} given zone runs. By the use of instance, we ran a Schedule with 2 zones (Entrance Turf Left and Entrance Turf Middle) set to water for 40 minutes every for a complete of 1 hour and 20 minutes. With Cycle/Soak turned on, the Moen controller interspersed 6 delays—alternating irrigation and delays between the two zones—so the whole period for the run was 3 hours and 17 minutes.
Connection of Third-Occasion Equipment and Voice Assistants
Stream Meter
For the final word in irrigation administration, nothing beats a move meter, an inline plumbing gadget that measures the precise water move in gallons per minute and cumulative gallons because the irrigation system operates. The Moen helps wired, third-party move meters, and they are often put in on the irrigation mainline then wired to the terminals on the controller.
As soon as the move meter is related and calibrated, each day, weekly, month-to-month, and yearly utilization metrics within the Moen app mirror precise gallons used. Moreover, realtime gallons per minute (GPM) metrics can be found as a zone runs by way of the Moen app standing block. And because the Moen controller is aware of the move meter is hooked up, it will probably generate notifications primarily based on an unexpectedly excessive or low water move occasion. That occasion might signify a damaged sprinkler head, cracked underground pipe, caught irrigation valve, or different points that may waste water or forestall the zone from usually operating.
To check this characteristic, we related an EveryDrop 1004-EX move meter to the Moen Good Sprinkler Controller set up. This can be a hard-wired vortex move meter with an built-in LCD show. As soon as it was correctly calibrated it labored seamlessly within the Moen app to offer realtime GPM readings as zones operated in addition to feeding cumulative water quantity knowledge to the Utilization tab.
Rain Sensor
An alternative choice for weather-based automation could be to attach a regular irrigation rain sensor to the Moen controller. Although Moen doesn’t provide a rain sensor accent, most 24-volt, third-party rain sensors may be wired to to the controller to allow this operate. For instance, Rain Chicken gives such a sensor.
We typically don’t advocate rain sensors with sensible irrigation controllers, since they aren’t as dependable as different sensible options (as an illustration, climate station integration). Nevertheless, they are often considerably efficient if activated by rainfall simply earlier than a Schedule is about to run. In that case, the Moen controller would skip schedules whereas the rain sensor was activated. As soon as the rain sensor dries out, regular operation resumes.
Voice Assistants
Moen helps each the Amazon Alexa and Google Dwelling voice assistants. We related our controller to the Google Dwelling ecosystem, which allows some restricted voice instructions and likewise locations an lively tile within the Google Dwelling app and Google Nest Hub sensible shows. The tile in Google Dwelling is a straightforward on/off swap for the complete Moen controller, and zones can’t be individually managed.
What’s To not Like
The Moen Good Sprinkler Controller is sadly hampered by a sub-par app that always doggedly refuses to save lots of settings, places up bogus errors, and is usually clumsy to make use of. The Utilization monitoring charts appear to work positive when seen by Day or 12 months, however present no knowledge by Week or Month. We frequently obtained “Surprising Water Stream” errors, when there isn’t a water move within the system wherever (as evidenced by our accent move meter LCD). These appear to be generated when the controller briefly loses energy.
Generally, we have been lastly in a position to get the app to do what we would have liked by quitting and restarting it, or repeatedly performing the motion or setting till we succeeded. Our testing was primarily based on model 3.6.1 of the iOS app, and Moen sprinkler controller firmware at v1.0.4j. We will solely hope the software program improves over time.
We expect the Good Wi-fi Soil Sensors are a terrific thought, however the lithium batteries in them should not replaceable. Moen says to anticipate them to last as long as 7 years, however solely time will inform if that’s the case. The one possibility with a lifeless battery is to buy a brand new sensor. They’re additionally relatively pricey at about $70 every (retail).
The Backside Line
Moen has introduced a viable competitor to market within the type of the Good Sprinkler Controller, a complete sensible irrigation system that provides spectacular options and an industry-first Good Wi-fi Soil Sensor accent that may ship simply the correct quantity of water to a panorama primarily based on precise in-ground moisture ranges. Nevertheless, it’s hampered by a sub-par app that may get in the best way of fundamental utilization.
