Why does it take OtO so long to water manually?

Note: This article applies both to manual watering using "Water now" and using Manual Watering Runs.

TL;DR: OtO sleeps to save battery, so manual watering can take up to 5 minutes to start. Flipping the switch wakes it instantly, but it’s not required.

The reason it takes about 5 minutes when watering manually is that OtO sleeps when not in use in order to conserve the battery. It wakes up every 5 minutes to check the cloud for commands. If it sees a command it will do an action, if not, it will go back to sleep.

If you press the switch, it will 'force' OtO to 'wake up' allowing you to water a little sooner.

Keep in mind there is also a delay after OtO wakes up where it needs to connect to Wi-Fi to look for commands. If your Wi-Fi signal is weak, this could slow down the process as well.