To complete the Cyber-Rain Smart-Phone trifecta, we have just recently released our Android App to the Android Market! Simply open the Android Market on your phone and search for “Cyber-Rain,” then, once finding the “Cyber-Rain Cloud,” download the app and you’ll be able to control your sprinklers from your phone on the go.
Remember, the Iphone App and Blackberry App are also available via their respective stores as well, and all the apps are FREE!
Julian Hinds Pumping Plant, Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times / September 8, 2011
In a recent article by the LA Times, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Bettina Boxall investigates the financial and environmental cost of Los Angeles’ love for imported water. On just one day in September, the Julian Hinds Pumping Plant, which is one of the central hydraulic arteries of Southern California pumped 900,000,000 gallons of water. Since its inception, Cyber-Rain has saved roughly 120,000,000 gallons of water. With growing concerns over the availability of water resources, more and more industries are seeking out companies like Cyber-Rain to help them save as much as possible. Click here to view Boxall’s original article.
During times of economic hardship, everyone is trying to save a buck. Sulphur Springs School District, located in Santa Clarita, California, will save approximately 32,000 of those bucks after just 12 months of irrigation under the Cyber-Rain Cloud. The transition to Cyber-Rain spanned 31 old irrigation controllers over 9 school campuses and 1 district office.
Environmentally, the savings for just one year will amount to roughly 15 million gallons of water. That’s 240,000,000 cups. If the average person is supposed to drink 8 cups of water a day, in just one year of savings, Sulphur Springs will free up enough water for 30,000,000 humans. That’s pretty amazing.
With Cyber-Rain automatically adjusting the watering schedule based on current weather conditions, the school’s maintenance and irrigation personnel have more time to work on other projects as well. All-in-all the implementation was a success for everyone involved, and Cyber-Rain is proud to be a part of that success. For more information, see the press release here.
With the release of our web-based Cyber-Rain Cloud, we are now able to take advantage of 3rd party web-integrated smartphones such as Blackberries, iPhones and Androids as “remotes” for our system. We’ve just recently released an app for the Blackberry that allows users to monitor their system and manually run zones from anywhere in the world where there’s a capable internet connection.
We’ve also had an iPhone app available for about 4 months now, which can be downloaded here. The Android app is in the works and we expect a beta version available to interested users in about 3 – 4 months.
Click here for a list of downloads including the Blackberry and Iphone apps.
Hey Everybody! We’re rekindling the Cyber-Rain blog with a number of new features and exciting announcements. At the top of the announcement list is our latest product, the Cyber-Rain Cloud: A Smart Irrigation Controller for the financially and environmentally aware home owner and/or business.
What is the Cloud? It’s a classic, trustworthy sprinkler timer with a modern, internet-enabled interface that automatically reduces watering times based on current weather conditions. The basic Cloud bundle includes a two-device setup, as described below:
The Controller – The magic box which controls when your sprinklers turn on and off. We’ve designed our Controllers to be as simple as possible when it comes to the basic functionality (such as setting up and running a schedule), but we’ve also included a lot of optional features and innovations that will get the tech savvy / DIY home owner very excited (such as detailed usage reports, real time flow and current monitoring, remote smart phone control, etc).
The Gateway – A smaller, yet similarly magical box which connects to your home or business router/modem. The Gateway communicates with the Cyber-Rain server through an internet connection and wirelessly with the irrigation Controller using Cyber-Rain’s proprietary wireless communication protocol. This device is the middle man between the Cyber-Rain server (performing quarter-hourly weather forecast updates, schedule edits, manual system runs) and the Controller.
Together, the Gateway and Controller create the Cloud bundle which comes in both 8 and 16 zone residential formats and 8, 16 and 24 zone commercial formats.
You can read more about the Cloud here.
City of San Diego is offering generous rebates for Smart Irrigation Controllers like Cyber-Rain. All the information relating to guidelines and applying can be found here:
http://www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation/smartcontroller.shtml
Between rebates and water savings, Cyber-Rain can be free! Some information from the site:
Rebate covers the purchase price of one SWAT approved Smart Controller up to a maximum of $400 per address. If a landscape professional installs Smart Controller, the device and installation costs can be rebated up to a maximum of $400 (up to $200 of the $400 can be used to rebate a landscape professional’s installation fee).”
Do you have questions about the Cyber-Rain system and its uses? We’d love to hear them!
Each week, we try to offer a Question of the Week, addressing a frequently asked question about the Cyber-Rain system, or ways in which the Cyber-Rain system can help save a significant amount of water every year. You can view previously asked questions here.
Send your questions to 4cyberrain@gmail.com.
We look forward to answering your questions, and invite you to become a part of the water-saving dialog!
Happy Thanksgiving from Cyber-Rain! Wishing you and your family a happy and fulfilling holiday.
Who doesn’t like to save money? And who doesn’t like to save money and do something good for the environment? Many individuals have already reserved their rebate from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s Save a Buck and SoCal Water$mart programs, courtesy of the MWD. The MWD has been offering free rebates to those consumers who have purchased water-savvy appliances and devices, such as smart irrigation controllers and high-efficiency clothes washers.
So Cal residents, get those MWD rebates! (Photo courtesy of MWD)
As of November 17, only about 40% of the total available rebates were still available. The MWD re-launched the rebate reservation program on September 21, and less than two months later, the rebates are more than half gone! The program is slated to run through May 2010 “or until funds are depleted,” and at this rate, said funds may not last until then!
The rebates which residential customers can claim are roughly divided into two categories: landscape and high-efficiency. For example, a homeowner who purchased a smart sprinkler controller such as Cyber-Rain would be eligible to apply for a landscape rebate, while a homeowner who purchased a more efficient dishwasher would apply for a high-efficiency rebate. In order to successfully reserve and receive a rebate, a consumer must mail a completed rebate application, a sales receipt for the item and a copy of their latest water bill within 45 days of purchase. It is wise to start conserving now, for if California legislators have their way, in just over 10 years, all residents will be expected to cut water use by 20%. If that is the case, now is a great time to start thinking of ways to conserve, and why not conserve when you get a financial incentive?
The pain of the California drought may soon lessen, thanks to the recent passage of five water bills. Senate Bills 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8 address the three-year statewide drought and ways in which water usage and management can be addressed and improved. The name of the game is infrastructure organization and more conservative water use restrictions in the long run.
As mentioned previously on the Cyber-Rain blog, the bills cover both general water use and the ways in which oversight will be put into place for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which has proven to be a bone of contention for many California water users, not least of which were many frustrated farmers who saw their water use cut dramatically as a result of both the drought and the fight over the Delta smelt. The delta comes up in more than half of the bills presented. The bills recommend the creation and empowering of various monitoring bodies and positions in the hope of fixing the current problems associated with the delta, including the creation of the Delta Conservancy and the Delta Stewardship Council and granting more powers to the State Water Resources Control Board. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently approved all of the bills. If all goes according to plan, over $11 billion could go toward updating the state’s water infrastructure, and “urban” water users will be mandated to cut down their annual water use by 20%, by 2020.
This is one step that many hope will act as a mitigating factor in the harsh drought conditions now faced by many California residents. Across the nation, other states (including Nevada, Arizona and Florida) have had to deal with localized droughts as well. You can help lessen the effects of the drought by conserving water on a daily basis. Every action ultimately makes a difference: so the next time you have the choice between walking by a water-wasting problem (such as a leaky faucet or broken sprinkler) or fixing it, fix it!
