iBlinds Questions

Sounds like you did not change the device type yet to the Window covering type? Then the set of variable to set should be LoadLevelTarget to change value and LoadLevelStatus for reading back.

No, I did change it to Window Covering. The problem is Vera thinks a Window covering is a roller blind, not horizontal tilt blinds. So, “open” would mean rolling the window blind all the way up, and “close” would mean rolling it all the way down. Problem is, “Open” means on horizontal tilt blinds closed one direction, and “closed” means closed the other direction. In reality, “Open” should mean 50%, right in the middle.

Setting it from luup code shouldn’t be a problem. I might must need to do the load level target then set it to execute. Not terribly an issue.

With the slider from the web, not a problem, but the Vera iOS app, there is no slider, so there is no way to set 50% on the app.

It’s not so different from the horizontal blind and I think this is more of a problem of setup of the iblinds than it is a vera problem. I encountered the same thing with the Somfy blind tilt controls.

I had to set up the Somfy as open with a custom position. (Somfy can do that not sure about iblinds) and I set the position to answer my open command on the vera. Either 0 or 100% are closed.

Can’t help with the iOS app. I have stopped using it years ago because… it relies on the mios cloud which is much too unreliable to my taste and as I have been advocating, is a flawed concept to begin with for reliability, performance and security. I use Homewave instead and connect directly without cloud. I can easily manipulate these levels on it.

That’s sort of what I figured. There has to be a way to set the open position, just not sure where.

The Luup code “luup.call_action(“urn:upnp-org:serviceId:Dimming1”,“SetLoadLevelTarget”,{ newLoadlevelTarget=“50” },316)” does work to “open” the blinds through PLEG.

May I suggest to try the awesome Switchboard plugin by @rigpapa?

It does exactly what you need:

Virtual Window Covering

It may seem odd to have virtual window coverings, but in Vera, the window covering implementation uses the Dimming1 service to set the opening (e.g. 0% is closed, and 50% is half open, and 100% is fully open). Calling SetLoadLevelTarget as one would for a dimmer controls the shade opening. The SwitchPower action SetTarget can also be used to quickly fully-open or fully-close the covering.

By default, Switchboard will simulate motor movement of the covering by ramping LoadLevelStatus at a rate of 5% per second to the target value. If your application requires a different rate, it can be set by setting RampRatePerSecond (as percent per second). Setting it to 0 disables ramp and causes the covering to go immediately to the requested target value.

I’ve experienced the same kind of connection problems described here. Moving the blinds closer to Vera to exclude and include seems to correct a lot of problems. When the blinds are in place, they are in a room covered with other, powered Z-Wave devices; communication is not a problem. I can control the blinds with the Vera app/web page without problem.

Vera and/or the voice assistants (Alexa, Google Home) still have a lot of work to do. Google Home, for now, seems to work best for me, but the syntax is clunky: “Turn on blinds,” and “Dim Blinds 30 percent,” etc. Nothing I say to Alexa seems to work.

I got Alexa to work, but it’s a bit awkward to set up. All I was trying to do was setup open and close blinds. Because I can’t figure out how to set the “On” or “open” value for the switch on Vera to 50%, which according to iBlinds they can do on Homeseer, but don’t know how to on Vera, I created a scene for each room, that set On value to 50%. So, I have a scene for my office, that controls both blinds, that is named Office Blinds Open, and another one called Office Blinds Closed. Doing a rediscovery on Alexa, it now see’s the scenes, and I can simply, but awkwardly say, “Alexa, turn on Office Blinds open”. I tried doing it as “turn off Office blinds open”, but Alexa told me that the scene didn’t support that.

So, in a nut shell, it’s a kludgy work around, but it does work. I have PLEG set up to open and shut the blilnds if I’m home or away, and tilt certain them based upon weather, time of day, and Heliosphere azimuth/elevation.

Just create a routine and use your favorite form. No need to remember any strange sequence of words.

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You have to remove the Vera Skill in Amazon then add the skill back to get it to see the Blinds in Vera.

But make sure you changed all the device settings if it came in as Dimmers.

Anyway had to change the config files in the device Advanced item config to DeviceFile = D_WindowCovering1.xml and Device Json = D_WindowCovering1.json and device type to urn:schemas-micasaverde-com:device:WindowCovering:1 … it then appears correctly as a Window Blind with its corresponding controls. you might need to reload engine

In Vera, you have click up or down (Not open or close) to get it to open in the 50% position which makes it exactly in the middle positon, otherwise it closes down or on up side.

Alexa does take the % numbers.

Anup

Anyway thanks everyone here on this site , and on the iblinds site , I was able to make those changes immediately and get things going with some info from here.

Don’t know if any of you are interested, but I modified the D_WindowCovering1.json file to more accurately work with iBlinds, and not the default behavior of roller blinds that the default json file is set up for. From the App and in the individual device screen, you click open, and it opens it to the midway point, not 180 degrees from closed. The JSON also changes it so the icons are reverse of what they are now, which didn’t seem to reflect proper open/close positions. It does not work properly from the browser where you are on the overall device screen with all your devices, but I’m told by Vera support that this is a known bug, and they might get to it eventually.

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Hey, I’m interested! Do you have a copy of that modified JSON? and instructions on how to load it…