Irrigation Verification

Introduction

This feature is available for users with flow and pressure sensors on Verdi Block Controllers and Verdi Micro-Block Controllers.

Real-time leak and break detection is made available using our pressure-based and or flow-based verification. When the sensor parameters are out of specification, SMS alerts will be sent to the users. This verification is made possible by installing a Verdi Controller and sensors (pressure and or flow) at each valve.

Verification can tell you when problems occur in your irrigation system and what those problems might be. Whenever your irrigation valve opens or closes, we keep track of sensor readings, the reported valve state, transition timing, and other information so you can see exactly what was happening the last time you irrigated.

Selecting a Verification Sensor

Sensor	Pros	Cons
Pressure	Low-cost hardware. Simple to install (5 minutes). Verifies irrigation timing.	Limited visibility into irrigation beyond simple pressure verification.
Flow	Ability to detect irrigation line level breaks. Accurate water usage tracking at the block level.	It's more expensive than a pressure sensor. It requires more time to install than a pressure sensor since it has to be plumbed in line with a PVC pipe.

If you have a pressure sensor at every valve, you can:

Verify there is non-zero pressure after the valve during an irrigation to confirm that the water is on.
Verify zero pressure after the valve at all other times (for example, every 2 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) to confirm the water is off.
Discover distribution uniformity issues related to insufficient block pressure.

If you have a flow meter at every valve, you can:

Verify the nominal flow rate through the valve during irrigation to confirm that the water is on and that there are no leaks or breaks.
Verify zero flow rate through the valve at all other times (for example, every 2 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) to confirm the water is off.
Discover distribution uniformity issues related to insufficient block flow rate.
Discover irrigation line breaks resulting in a spike in nominal flow rate.

View Valve State Verification Results

In the Verification section on the device card, you will see a tab for each valve state, as well as either a ✔ or ⚠, indicating if the Verdi Controller passed verification. You can click on the tab to see more information about the problem. In the example below, since the irrigation system was winterized but the irrigation schedule was not canceled, the valve's open state fails since the pressure and flow metrics are out of the open state specifications.

Note Ramp-Up Period
The first 3 minutes (default and adjustable) of flow and pressure data at the start of a scheduled irrigation is ignored to account for the inrush of water and the expected higher than nominal flow. No SMS verification alerts will be sent within the first 3 minutes of a scheduled irrigation. Read more here.

Device Card Valve State Verifications - Valve Close Transition

Device Card Valve State Verifications - Valve Open Transition

How to Determine and Set Sensor Thresholds

Sensor Verification can be enabled in the device card of the Verdi Block Controller under the settings menu of a connected sensor. There, you can set the nominal sensor range you expect when the valve is open and when the valve is closed. For example, if you expect a nominal flow rate through your block valve of 95LPM when the valve is open, you might choose to set the “Min” threshold to 75 LPM and the “Max” threshold to 115 LPM. Therefore you will receive a text message notification alert if there is a difference of 20 LPM from the nominal expected flow range. To determine nominal flow, observe the raw flow values for several successful irrigations - see the image below where we observe the nominal flow rate is approximately 95 LPM.

The observed nominal flow of approx 95 LPM. Zoomed-out graph view.

The observed nominal flow of approx 95 LPM. Zoomed-in graph view.

Sensor Verification Ramp-Up Period

To help reduce false alerts, Verdi includes a sensor verification ramp-up period for sensor-based verification.

When a valve changes state, such as turning on or off, pressure and flow readings may take time to stabilize. During this ramp-up period, Verdi temporarily ignores the sensor value for verification purposes. This means the system will not fail verification based on sensor readings until the ramp-up period has ended.

How it works

If sensor-based verification is enabled on a device, Verdi allows the sensor reading to be outside its expected range during the configured ramp-up period immediately after a valve transition. Once that period ends, Verdi begins using the sensor reading to determine whether verification passes or fails. If verification fails at that point, the alert behaves normally.

Default setting

The default sensor verification ramp-up period is 3 minutes. This value was chosen because pressure and flow often need time to stabilize after a valve opens and checking too early can create unnecessary alerts.

What this helps prevent

This feature helps avoid false verification failures caused by normal system stabilization, such as:

pressure taking time to build after a valve opens
flow taking time to reach its normal range
pressure remaining elevated briefly after a valve closes

Important note

The ramp-up period only delays sensor-based verification checks. Other failures, such as a device being offline or a solenoid not triggering, can still fail immediately.

Configuration

The ramp-up period is configurable in the sensor settings for each individual device, allowing you to adjust it for field conditions where pressure or flow takes longer to stabilize.