Home Assistant Blinds Control Custom Integration

[MatthewOnTour (Matúš)]

Home Assistant Blinds Control Integration

GitHub Repository: BUT_blinds_time_control

Upgrade your Home Assistant with this custom blinds control integration. Effortlessly manage your time-based blinds, syncing with your chosen entities for raising and lowering. Plus, it remembers your settings after restarts and supports tilting.

How to Install

You can add this integration through HACS (Home Assistant Community Store) as a custom repository, or simply copy all files from the custom_components/blinds_controller directory into your Home Assistant’s /custom_components/blinds_controller/ directory.

Then, just give Home Assistant a quick restart, and you’re good to go.

Setting Things Up

Head over to Settings → Devices and Services → Click on Add Integration (select Blinds Control) to integrate your blinds into the system.

Name your blinds, select the controlling entities, specify roll-up and roll-down times in seconds, and if you need it, set tilt times (or leave them at 0 if you don’t want to tilt support).

You can also tweak existing configurations to suit your preferences (just reload the edited entries).

Automations

During the setup process, you have the option to configure various automated tasks. These features are currently in an EXPERIMENTAL phase and are being developed as part of my bachelor’s thesis, so please refrain from extensive experimentation with this automation.

Examples include scheduling specific times for actions such as raising or lowering blinds, automating the opening and closing of blinds based on sunrise and sunset times, or automatically lowering blinds when a particular entity is activated during the night. Additionally, there are weather protection measures available, such as responding to strong winds using the WMO Code and utilizing the Open Meteo API or perhaps you would like to use Netatmo, that also works. For those utilizing interlock relays, there’s the possibility of triggering a stop command at the end of travel.

Acknowledgment

Work was based on and inspired by this insightful community post

[konehead]

Hi Matthew,

This seems a very usefull imtegration. Thanks for sharing this with us. Since this is a new integration i ahve some ‘blond’ queastion. Really appriciate if you could help me!

1. is your solution ready to control sunshade?
   How can I control a sunshade where I can determine how far the sunshade is closed or open based on ‘open’ or ‘close’ time? Does you integration support this?

I have a sunshade which I can control with an RFLINK for OPEN, STOP or CLOSE. I control the RFLINK via MQTT (so with 3 separate commands). This works well, but I would like to give a command: open sunshade for 20% or open it for 100%…My awning has no support to return how much % the screen is open.

2. How can I integrate MQTT commands in your solution?

To control my sunshade I have to send a command to RFLINK thru MQTT, the commands are staded below. How can I integrate these commands in your solution?

10;BrelMotor;5b0572;D1;UP;
10;BrelMotor;5b0572;D1;STOP;
10;BrelMotor;5b0572;D1;DOWN;

3. I have installed the HACS files + integration… but the descriptions are missing

I have installed everything according your instruction, the labels descriptions are missing… what do I wrong?

[MatthewOnTour (Matúš)]

Hi konehead,

Thank you for your feedback. Let me address your points:

1. Absolutely, the integration can manage sunshades. However, if you prefer not to utilize this feature, you can simply set the tilt times to 0 during configuration.

2. This might be a problem that I did not anticipate. My setup works with Sonoff switches connected to Home Assistant via ESPHome. While I indeed utilize three commands, I only have two buttons. However, I believe I could address this by adding a third option for a STOP button. (Feel free to open an issue on GitHub so i dont forget).

3. I suggest clearing your cache and reloading the page to see if that resolves the issue. Hopefully, this will fix the problem.

I hope that this will answer your questions. I apologize if I didn’t fully understand everything, as English is not my first language.

[konehead]

Nice!

Regarding point 2: thanks, will do
Regarding point 3: I have cleared the cach, and have checked on other device. I still don’t see the labels Please see below my files

[MatthewOnTour (Matúš)]

Hi,

That’s odd. Well, I had this issue at the beginning, but clearing the cache did the trick for me. However, I found this post, but that also doesn’t seem to be the case because the domain and directory name are the same (blinds_controller).

The files look good, and I just redownloaded the whole project to double-check if something is wrong, but I can’t replicate this issue. As shown in the picture below, it works.

But there is one more thing we can check: if you can access the logs (home-assistant.log). Perhaps we can find more information there.

[konehead]

Thanks for your reply. I deleted the whole integration, deleted cach and the problem is still there. I have only to upload the files in the ‘blinds_controller’ directory, Am i right?

No errors in home-assistant.log

[MatthewOnTour (Matúš)]

Well yes, that should work.

I just tested it by copying the files into custom_components, and it works. I also tried downloading it again via HACS, and it worked without any issues as well.

It’s really strange that it’s not working properly. I can’t think of anything else that could be causing it. Could you try editing anything else in Devices and Services to see if the problem persists there?

[konehead]

I found it! BEcause you mentioned installing via HACS…

Please see the main directory, made an issuein the name: controler in stead of controller! Now it works fine. Thanks for your support.

Will submit tomorrow the STOP request

[ladaowner]

My blinds you press UP and they need a stop command to stop them. How does one at that?

[MatthewOnTour (Matúš)]

Hello.

Could you tell me more about the type of controller you use to manage the blinds’ movement? Understanding the specifics of your setup will help me provide tailored advice on incorporating a stop command effectively.

Looking forward to helping you out!

[ladaowner]

RF arc2100 has the following button

Open
Close
Pause

There is no move up or move down button.

If I want it half way open I do this
Open
Wait until half way
Pause

Does that help.

[MatthewOnTour (Matúš)]

Hi,

I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand your issue.

Is this part working?:
If I want it half way open I do this
Open
Wait until half way
Pause

Perhaps this integration is not compatible with your controller/blinds.

Best regards

[ladaowner]

I can only make blinds open or closed with your integration.

How do I make blinds 50% open?

[ladaowner]

lots of blinds work this way with a stop button. Other integrations include this.

[plhc]

Is it possible to extend the integration to Shelly 2.5 (gen 1) and Shelly Plus 2PM (gen 2) in Roller mode? In my case i have no way to get power from Inputs to calibrate the shutter since i have to Control the Roller via a relay. Basically the Connection to the shutter (up and down) is Directly via the Shelly Outputs to the relay (and the relay Provides the power for UP and Down). The Shelly Inputs are empty

[MatthewOnTour (Matúš)]

@plhc

case i have no way to get power from Inputs to calibrate the shutter since i have to Control the

Hi i can have a look on it, but i have to sort some things out at school.

[joost]

Thanks for creating! If I add the cover to the dashboard I get this view:

But is there any way to get the slider view directly on the dashboard instead, ie. this view?

[MatthewOnTour (Matúš)]

Hi,

There could be a way to achieve this using: Lovelace Slider Entity Row.

Just add it using HACS (you can find it as “slider-entity-row” in the frontend section). Then, you can add the card to your dashboard. You are looking for the manual option.

You will be prompted to add your custom Lovelace.

Just add the code below and fill out your correct cover.your_cover_name and pick a name for it.

type: entities
entities:
  - entity: cover.your_cover_name
    name: Slider_name
    type: custom:slider-entity-row
    step: 1  # This sets the slider to increment by 1 and can be changed to any number
    full_row: false # This hides icon and name if true

It should look like this:

I could not find a better solution at this time. Hope it helps.

[plhc]

Thank you very much. Let us know

[xperry-42]

Hi Matthew,
Thank you very much for this great integration.

I am very happy with this integration, because I can adjust the height of the venetian blinds and tilt of the slats of my “dumb” blinds both with a button on the wall switch and with HomeAssistant by adding any two (or one double) switch. In addition, the settings in HomeAssistant are synchronized when using mechanical switches on the wall. I am currently using two spare MINIR4M switches and one 3559-A89345 switch in one KPR 68/D_KA instrument box. However, I don’t recommend DIY Sonoff smart switches because of their approx 0.5 second latency. I will test latency one of DIY dual smart switches like Shelly, Moes, EMOS, etc. Then I’ll let you know what I’ve tried and if they have instant response unlike Sonnoff.

Btw, I haven’t found another smart solution to control the tilt of the blinds from the wall switch so that their settings are synchronously written to the HomeAssistant.

Would you be so kind as to fix the bug see issue #6 on Github and ideally also complete the HACS requirements so that this great integration is available on HACS without having to use a custom repositories?

Many thanks once again.
Petr