Hey Jim,
Well, I'll defer to your experience. I still haven't hooked up my wires, I'm waiting for my landscaping guy to come over and document my 8 zones. It should be in another day or so. I'm all about water conservation, in fact I'm all about conservation. Here's a link to our solar install:
http://www.plumtv.com/videos/vail-a-home-harnessing-solar-power/index.htmlMaybe adding more Programs is the way to go. But I can't say, until I've had a chance to dink around with this. I'll definitely be providing feedback.
For me, for my yard, I plan on adding a few more zones -- to save water. Right now, my zones cover a wide area because our yard has changed so much since we moved in. Now it's stable. For example I have a zone that waters my wild flowers, along with some of the native grass. I want to separate that particular zone into 2 zones, so I can have one zone just for my wild flowers. In other words, I end up watering grass when all I really want to do is water my wild flowers -- because that's how the zone is setup. So I'm wasting water. So if I can add some more zones in my yard, that should save water.
What really caught my eye and sold me on what you're doing, was that I could see right away where I'd save water. Because, I could use software to control my zones. Then, having up to 24 zones, 3 boxes. I won't end up with 24, but I bet I'll end up with 12 or so. Again, I want to break my yard up into smaller zones, to save water.
Stay tuned...