Hunter Sprinkler Timer Guide

Which Hunter do you have?

The model name is printed on the faceplate, usually near the dial. The common ones in Southwest Florida homes:

X-Core and X2 — a grey box with a dial, a small screen, and a rain-sensor switch under the dial. Very common on homes built in the last fifteen years.
Pro-C — a larger box with the same style of dial, room for extra zone modules inside.
Hydrawise (HC, Pro-HC, HPC faceplate) — no dial. A touchscreen on the box plus the Hydrawise phone app; either one can start a run.

If yours is not listed, or the name has worn off, text us a photo.

The one thing to know about a Hunter dial

Nothing waters unless the dial sits on RUN. That single fact explains most “my sprinklers stopped” calls. Every scheduled or hand-started run needs the dial back on RUN to actually go.

Run it by hand, once a week (X-Core, X2, Pro-C)

This is the whole job for most customers. Monday’s email tells you how many minutes; you turn the dial. Two things to know first: the Manual position on these dials runs one zone at a time, and the whole-lawn run comes from a stored program that you start by hand. So there is a one-time setup, then one weekly move.

First, check for bed or drip schedules. The whole-program setup below assumes every zone will be manual. If non-lawn zones still need automatic watering, keep their programs and leave the dial on RUN. Remove grass zones from those retained programs by setting only the grass run times to zero, and clear all four start-time slots in any lawn-only program. Use the one-zone manual steps below for grass; do not overwrite a program needed by beds or drip. Photograph existing settings before changing them.

Once, the first time (all zones manual):

Turn the dial to Run Times and press the PRG button until the screen shows program A. The one-touch start in the weekly step runs program A, so the minutes must be stored there, not in B or C.
Enter the minutes from Monday’s email for each grass zone, using the arrow buttons to move between zones. Set non-lawn zones to zero in this grass program; keep their watering separate.
Turn the dial to Start Times and select program A. Set slot 1 to OFF (use minus to reach 12:00 AM, then press once more). Press the right arrow to advance to slot 2, then 3, then 4, setting each to OFF. Press PRG to select B and repeat slots 1–4, then select C and repeat slots 1–4. These models have four start-time slots per program: checking just the first leaves other triggers active. If your display hides programs or slots, use your model manual to show them before completing this check. With no start time, nothing runs on its own; the program only runs when you start it.
Turn the dial to SYSTEM OFF. That is where it rests.

Each run (all zones manual):

Turn the dial to RUN.
Press and hold the right-arrow button for about two seconds. The box starts a full run of the program: every zone in turn, with the minutes you stored. This is Hunter’s one-touch manual start.
When the run finishes (add up your zone minutes to know how long), turn the dial back to SYSTEM OFF. Do it the same day: while the dial sits on RUN, any schedule the builder left behind could still fire, and the whole point of this method is that nothing runs unless you start it.

When Monday’s email changes the minutes: turn the dial to Run Times (program A) and enter the new number. Leave Seasonal Adjust at 100%: it scales whatever is stored and stays put, so a percentage set once would quietly shrink or stretch every later number you enter.

One zone only (to water in a treatment on request, or to check a zone): turn the dial to Manual, One Station, pick the zone with the arrows, set the minutes, then turn the dial to RUN. It waters that one zone and stops. Keep RUN afterward if bed or drip schedules must remain active; use SYSTEM OFF only when all zones are manual.

Skip week: when Monday’s email says skip, do nothing. For an all-manual system, the dial is already off. With bed or drip schedules retained, leave RUN selected and skip only the manual grass run.

A hand run counts the same as a scheduled one. Run it only on your assigned day and inside your county’s allowed hours. Monday’s email carries the current rule.

Hydrawise: run it from the app or the touchscreen

Open the Hydrawise app and go to Zones, or tap Zones on the controller’s touchscreen.
Pick the grass zones and run each for the minutes from Monday’s email (bed and drip zones need less, so give them their own shorter run rather than a run-all with the grass number).
To keep the lawn from running on its own, remove grass zones from every automatic program in the app, preserving bed and drip zones and their settings. Delete a program only if no zone still needs it. If all zones are manual, remove every automatic program. A temporary zone suspension expires, so it is not a permanent replacement for this cleanup. Skip week: skip the manual grass run and leave needed non-lawn schedules active.

When OFF is the resting position

Many boxes still carry a schedule the builder or the previous owner programmed. If that schedule runs and you also run by hand, the lawn gets watered twice, and one of those runs is probably outside the allowed hours. When every zone is manual, leaving the dial on SYSTEM OFF between runs makes that impossible, and the one-time Start Times check above removes the old schedule’s trigger for the minutes the dial has to sit on RUN.

Want it to run itself? The optional schedule

If your county’s allowed hours are overnight, or you travel, a schedule beats an alarm clock. Set it once, then let Monday’s email tell you when to change the minutes.

Hydrawise (app): remove grass zones from old programs while preserving needed bed and drip schedules. Add one grass-only program, pick only your assigned day and a single start time inside your county’s allowed hours, and set the minutes from Monday’s email for each grass zone. Use time-based watering for the grass program and check its watering-day restrictions; preserve settings for other zones. When the plan says skip: in the app, choose Actions → Suspend Zones, select only the grass zones in this program, set the start and end dates to cover the skip period, and tap Suspend. Leave bed and drip zones unselected so their schedules continue. Grass watering resumes automatically after the end date; review the next lawn plan before then and extend the suspension if it still says skip. To end the grass suspension early, open that grass zone and remove its suspension. See Hunter’s suspend/resume instructions.

The dial steps below are for the X-Core, X2 and Pro-C.

Set the date and time. Turn the dial to Current Time/Day. Check AM and PM twice. A wrong AM/PM is the number one reason sprinklers come on at noon.
Use one program. Hunter timers offer programs A, B and C, chosen with the PRG button. Use one grass-only program; do not overwrite a program needed by beds or drip. Set grass run times to zero in other retained programs. Clear all four start-time slots in every unused program.
One start time. Turn the dial to Start Times and set a single start inside your county’s allowed hours. Use the right arrow to inspect slots 1, 2, 3 and 4 in that program; keep only the intended start and set the other three to OFF. Press PRG to inspect A, B and C, checking all four slots in each; preserve starts only in programs still needed for non-lawn watering.
Minutes per zone. Turn the dial to Run Times, press PRG to reselect your grass-only program, and enter the minutes from Monday’s email for each grass zone. Set bed and drip zones to zero in this grass program and retain their separate programs. If you are not sure which zone is which, run each by hand briefly and watch.
Water days. Keep that grass-only program selected, turn the dial to Water Days and choose only your assigned day. Clear the rest.
Back to RUN. A schedule only runs with the dial in this position.
Rain in the forecast? If all zones should pause, set a controller-wide rain delay: turn the dial to SYSTEM OFF, wait for OFF to stop flashing, press the plus button to choose one to seven days off, then turn the dial back to RUN. The box waits out those days and resumes on its own. SYSTEM OFF also pauses every zone. If beds or drip must continue during a lawn skip, clear only the grass program’s four start times, record them for restoration, and leave RUN selected. Leave Seasonal Adjust at 100% here too; a percentage set for one rainy week stays on and scales every number you enter after it.

Rain sensor switch: the small slide switch under the dial reads Active and Bypass. Leave it on Active. A sensor left bypassed all summer keeps watering through the rainy season, and that is how lawns get fungus. If the sensor itself is broken, the box will refuse to water at all; that is a repair, see below.

Official manuals

Hunter publishes the full manual and a quick-start card for every model on the Hunter Industries site. Search by the model name on your box. The steps above are our own plain-language version; the manual is the authority on your exact buttons.

Stuck?

Text a photo of your timer to (941) 297-5749 and we will point you to the right step. Waves does not repair irrigation. If a zone will not run or a head is broken, we will refer you to an irrigation contractor we trust.