I’ve created a new custom integration to automate window covers. You can find documentation and HACS installation instructions on the website. Let me know what you think!
Smart Cover Automation
A Home Assistant integration to automate the control of your smart home’s window covers with a focus on quality, reliability, and flexibility.
Functionality
Easy to use:
Simple to configure, transparent and reliable operation.
All settings are available from the UI, no need to edit YAML.
Sun heat protection:
Close covers while the sun shines on a window to prevent the house from heating up.
Open covers when there’s no direct sunlight to minimize dark cave feeling.
The automation takes into account:
Is the sun shining or is it cloudy?
Is it a hot day?
Is the sun in a position to shine on a given window?
Manual override detection:
Detect manual adjustments and pause automation to avoid conflicts.
Lockout protection:
Pause automations for a cover if the door/window is open.
Night privacy & night silence:
Close a subset of covers after sunset for privacy.
Don’t move the covers when people are sleeping.
Don’t open the covers when the sun is below the horizon.
Plant light:
Define min/max positions for the covers so that plants on the windowsill receive enough light.
Comfort: Micro-adjustments are avoided.
Supported covers: Works with any cover entity that supports open/close or position control.
Rich language support: UI translations available for Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish.
Configuration Options
Need of sunlight and desire for shade are individually very different. The integration allows you to tailor the way your covers move according to your needs. Extensive configuration options should make it possible to implement most scenarios easily.
Try Before You Buy
Enable simulation mode, which shows exactly what the integration would do without actually moving the covers.
Note: the integration is free and open source, of course!
Monitoring the Integration’s Operation
The integration helps you understand what’s going on in the following ways:
Cover movements are logged in Home Assistant’s activity logbook.
Multiple sensors make key aspects of the integration’s status available in the UI.
The Home Assistant log file shows the integration’s workings in detail.
Hello and congratulations for this work.
I haven’t had time to test your integration yet, but I’d like to know if it uses pyramometers as irradiance sensors.
This is a fundamental measurement, which is included in @basbruss’s integration, and is much more reliable than brightness or weather station data.
Similarly, @basbruss’s integration is unable to properly handle adjustable sunshades (called BSO in french - outisde cover with tilts in the same product). Do you think your integration could provide a solution to this problem?
Thank you for taking my comments into consideration.
As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t yet tested your integration, but I plan to do so very soon by assigning one or two roller shutters to it to compare its functionality with @basbruss’s integration, which seems to be no longer being developed.
A pyranometer provides a measurement of irradiance in W/m². This sensor is therefore particularly suitable for closing roller shutters or blinds when the sun is in your eyes.
A lux meter provides a measurement of brightness in lux. The problem is that you can have the same brightness in full sun as in a completely cloudy sky.
Weather information, on the other hand, never provides a very localized picture of cloud cover in real time. It’s not uncommon to receive inaccurate information.
There are very sophisticated and precise pyrometers on the market, but the one I use is sufficient for its intended purpose (> ± 300 W/m² —> sunlight). It can be found HERE for around 40 euros.
The connection with Home Assistant is made using an ESP32 via RS485.
The device is positioned on the roof or a facade.
An external venetian blind (BSO) should be able to separate the roller shutter’s operation (height) independently of the slat angle. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with the @basbruss integration, but I don’t know why. In any case, if the BSO is lowered, the slat angle also changes.
thank you for this custom integration. I think it looks very promising. I am looking forward to using and testing it.
Using the weather forecast to determine the necessity of shading seems like a splendid idea to me. I am pretty much doing the same myself manually. Unfortunately, it is winter, and I am not able to set the maximum temperature below 10 °C in order to test the automation properly.
I also use Venetian blinds:
For me, the slat angle setting depends mainly on my requirement of light in the room.
Therefore, it would suffice to set a fixed angle for day and night. Possibly, this could also be extended to use an external helper for the slat angle based on other measurements (which are themselves time-based).
Another idea that comes to mind is a memory setting for the slat angle — memorizing the last angle before the night automation is triggered and reusing that angle afterwards.
Thanks again and looking forward to use this
Georg
Thanks for your comments and kind words, @patrickp78 and @sureL89. I’m confident that we’ll have the integration fully supporting all common use cases in time for spring at the latest.
I’ve created three new issues to track your enhancement requests:
Hi, thanks for starting this integration. I’ve set this up but I’m a little confused as to the expected behavior. Moving over from Adaptive Cover, I’d expected my west facing vertical blinds would gradually drop as the sun lowered, approaching their max setting, then raise as the sun dropped below it’s minimum elevation. My blinds appear to have lowered to max and stayed there.
I’m afraid I misunderstand your last comment…
I think it’s very important, when it’s sunny, to be able to adjust the opening height of the roller shutters to keep a specific area shaded. This is one of Adaptive Cover’s strengths, and once you’ve tried it, you can’t live without it! Examples:
raising or lowering the roller shutter throughout the day to always have a sunny area on the ground (or on a work surface) that never extends more than ± 80 cm from the facade.
protecting a plant placed 60 cm above the ground from the sun’s rays.
If it’s simply a matter of closing a shutter because the facade is sunny, then no special integration is needed…
Otherwise, in HA, 100% means 100% open, and 0% means completely closed.
I’m afraid, that’s not amongst my goals for Smart Cover Automation.
As I mentioned, you can set minimum and maximum positions per cover. That should enable most real-world scenarios, e.g., ensuring a plant gets enough light.
