I am considering purchase of a RainMachine to replace my existing Rachio controller, which overall is a fine controller.  The primary reason for wanting to shift is that despite hundreds of requests from end users, Rachio developers refuse to implement a simple setting that best reflects the amount of water applied to lawns by zone.  This would be done by entering the GPM flow rate of each zone as read from my water meter at the typical time of day of watering, and along with watering durations, maintain a log with that data that can be queried for daily, weekly, monthly, annual water consumption.

I admire the devotion of many users to input sprinkler head counts, precipitation rates, slope, exposure, but it simply is not my thing.  In the most simple manner possible, I need to use as little water as possible, look at my grass to make sure it is staying healthy, and monitor the amount of water I am using, full circle.

It seems that RainMachine may have heard the feedback bouncing of the front door of Rachio, and has implemented this feature under Advanced Settings as "Total Flow (optional, used instead of area for drip irrigation) BLANK BOX FOR ENTRY gpm".  Could someone please confirm this for me, and that it matches the desired use case I describe above?  Is the reference to drip irrigation just an example, and that this feature works for all zone types?  Is this setting independent of the optional "Area" setting above it, or are they somehow related.

Any information would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance.