Automatic blinds / sunscreen control based on sun platform

Because we can ask that for every additional condition/parameter/threshold.
The normal mode is just for giving the basic calculations values in a sort of raw way, so you can set it fully to your liking by controlling and automating with the help of the provided entities.

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It’s re-creating the wheel for a small audience that might not need it. It’s very simple to write a script or template that acts on a click and instantly enables/disabled every Adaptive Cover toggle - that same system is then even easier to bake into your automation for using it however you want rather than being pigeonholed into whatever Bas put into the system.

I have all kinds of automation for my Adaptive Covers that just toggle that for temperature, cloud cover, desire, time of day. Quite honestly the best sensor in the extension is the “In Sun” sensor, once you know that you can almost ignore everything else (although I do use it as designed).

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How am I supposed to align the compass when trying to find out my window’s Azimuth on osmcompass.com/?

I drew you the window in the picture from the first post.

The blue line is your window, you’re standing where the degrees are and look through the blue line on the street.

For your window, you’d need to bring “my blue line” parallel to the glass. :slight_smile:

Sorry, not a graphics genius, and using a trackball didn’t help either… :joy:

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Hi @basbrus still using your integration and happy with it. Along the way I started using it not only for my venetian blinds (I just toggle the Auto switch when closed / opened accordingly, thats all).
Now I am going to use my vertical blinds as well for the other windows - but only when there is sun and an acceptable amount of wind. Currently I a simulating the weather and once it works good, I will use a weather station for that.

I got some points where I am not sure if I am using it wrong or there might be an issue:

  • For the vertical blinds, when the Auto button is on but no sun in front of the windows it seems that every minute or so the actor is triggered even there is no movement. There is a “click-click” from the actor and looking into HASS confirms that as the “last seen” from the actor updates every minute, sometimes multiple times per minute. On all other actors (same type, version etc) it updates approximately hourly. Are the target position values overwritten even though there is no change? I think this will not be good for the actors in the long run

  • I do not get how the “Sun in front” and Start and End time sensors differ. For my Venetian blinds the time is approximately the same (± 5min). For the vertical blinds they differ around 2 hrs. Did I get it right that all three sensor should be consistent, or is start and end based on other/less/more calculations than Sun infront, e.g. that one is considering the field of view and offsets and the other doesn’t?

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I found this Blueprint and reading the description, I could not find an answer for my conditions.

I need an automation for sunscreens which incorporates the following conditions:

  • Sun (which is handled perfectly in this blueprint)
  • Weather - Wind strength
  • Window - The condition if a window is open/closed
    Is it posible to add these last two conditions to the blueprint?
    Kind regards, Bert

You should ask in the thread for the blueprint, I’m quite sure you’d get a more appropriate response. :slight_smile:

I know, this isn’t exactly clear on a first glance, but this very thread has grown from blueprint to integration, and if I’m not mistaken, the blueprint got its own thread. :laughing:

Take a look here:

Btw. I personally can’t say if your questions are possible or not, sorry!

By now I didn’t have a closer look at the blueprint, maybe it does things I’d like to have, but I need some input for understanding how to deal with things.

The sun reaches a point (azimuth/elevation/whatever) at a given time. This time can be calculated, as the sun does not move unexpectedly.

To make the movement of blinds predictable to the users, it makes sense to show the time some movement will happen to the users (and maybe even editable so one could shift it as wanted).

This also is expected to lower CPU usage. You need only a trigger at that time, instead of watching every minute (“Did the sun arrive at the point? Oh, it will be there in 5 hours? Fine, I’ll check again next minute, can’t expect it.”).

I’m searching how to get that time. You don’t calculate/use/expose that time already somewhere?

This is not really a concern. The blueprint uses the information about the sun’s position from the sun.sun entity which is already throttled by itself and are not stopped by not using the blueprint. You can look into the Sun component in HA core to see more details on how the throttling works.

The blueprints only outputs the calculated best position for your blinds, so no time or something.

The integration on the otherhand provides you with two entities with the start and end time when the sun enters and leaves the field of view of your window calculated on a 5 minute interval to reduce the amount of calculations.

Hoi @langestefan . Have you considered adding a function for an Awning? I’ve got the formula to calculate required extension (horizontal awning), just tossing up whether to add to this Repo, or to create a new Repo.

There is horizontal awning available, you can select it and it works quite good in my experience.
What’s missing from my point of view ist the roof windows that can be managed as an horizontal awning with 45° angle, but does not consider that the window is on a roof and the sun still reaches the windows and thus is “in front” even if the sun is already “behind it” based on the calculation (but in reality is still somewhere above the roof)

Sorry where is horizontal awning available? In the auto_sun_blind() calculation?

I couldn’t find it

I think @x4N70pHyLL is referring to my integration (Adaptive Cover) that does have support for horizontal awnings even under an angle.

Ok. Where can I find Adaptive Cover? It’s not listed in HACS or under default integrations…

You need to add the repo in HACS manually, but besides that it is integrated (such as updates etc) in the same way as other HACS components

Brilliant. Adaptive Cover looks like a very complete solution. Have you considered submitting it to the Default HACS Repository List.

Seems it deserves a spot there!

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It is submitted over more than 8 months ago :wink:. The backlog seems to be very long and timely perhaps due to the new updates released for HACS recently.

I’ve installed the integration but it does not move the blinds. It acts like it should, but the blinds do not move. My blinds only have up,down and memory, they don’t do 10%, 12%, etc. What am I missing?

The integration only works with covers that support the action cover.set_cover_position.

You can use this to add % to blinds without it:

Work perfectly for me. You just have to input the time for it to move up and down.

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