Support for Switchbot Blind Tilt

Geoff_B · March 21, 2023, 3:17am

No… refreshing seems to be an issue.

Mine respond immediately and reliably, but I still have three issues including the refresh:

The status never refreshes unless I press the ‘stop’ button in the UI control (haven’t tried sending a stop command after the blinds have finished opening/closing, maybe a solution)
I can’t find how to get Google Assistant to see it as something that can be opened/closed, it only shows it as a status
I can’t see how to get the ‘close’ command on the UI control to close up, which gives a tighter close for my old-ish blinds

By ‘UI’ control, I’m talking about this thing:

Haven’t tried faking it with a grid of custom buttons yet, but that would be next.

Geoff_B · March 21, 2023, 3:18am

Have you tried the ESP32Home bluetooth proxy? It works flawlessly for me, at least for sending commands (status updates nonexistent still).

withay · March 21, 2023, 3:51am

Yep, that’s what I’m using. Usually, 7 or 8 out of nine tilts work reliably - just a different 7 or 8 each time. And clicking open or close doesn’t always work - sometimes I need to go into the switching app, which tells me the blind isn’t connected, but still works.

planetix · March 21, 2023, 3:59pm

You’re right; service cover.stop_cover_tilt needs to be sent after adjusting the position each time otherwise it stays in an opening or closing state. Once the stop command is sent it goes in to the correct state (open, closed, or %open).

I’m seeing the position update correctly regardless i.e. it knows if the blinds are at 50%, etc. it’s the state that doesn’t change unless stop is issued.

Feels like a bug. Need to figure out what relevant logs to send or if it’s enough just to explain the problem in a bug report.

planetix · March 21, 2023, 4:03pm

To close up take a look at the Cover Template the guy at Smart Home scene did for this model, it lets you reverse the direction.

I’m going to try to modify it to also send the stop command after tilting the blinds.

brendan · March 27, 2023, 9:53pm

@planetix
There was originally discussion about the tilt positions and the stopping, and I know the HA Team fixed it on release with the close command with some kind of hacky work around.
This is not unique to Switchbot though, the SOMA Tilt motors do exactly the same thing. The work around I found with SOMA was to use the Homekit integration for them, not the actual SOMA one, as the Home kit integration seems to set full open as 100% and closed up as 0% (or closed down as 0% if selected in the SOMA connect). Maybe looking at the code in Homekit integration can show how it handles tilt blinds?
Not unique to Home Assistant though. Connect Switchbot tilts directly to Google with the Switchbot skill and fully closed up is reported as 100% in Google Home and fully open is reported as 50%. This seems to be common with how automated tilt motors report the position.

@withay
I find the exact same thing using the Switchbot Hub Mini too. Reliability does not seem to be a Home Assistant thing on it’s own. I use timers and light level to adjust the tilt directly in the Switchbot app and 90% of the time it does not work at all with light levels, and 20% of the time timers fail also.

withay · March 27, 2023, 10:16pm

I really think it’s a connectivity issue with the blinds themselves.

brendan · March 28, 2023, 12:09am

Hopefully a firmware update can fix it. They do communicate BLE, but I have other things that use BLE and work okay, including some SOMA tilt motors

withay · March 30, 2023, 12:44pm

So, I have five tilts in my Living Room, and two in my Dining Room. Two separate automation to open them in the morning (Dining Room at sunrise, Living Room triggers off of a motion detector) and they all close at sunset.

At this point, at least one of the Living Room and one of the Dining Room tilts don’t operate, twice a day, every day, usually a different one each time… It’s annoying, and I hate not being able to depend on something automated…

Until this morning - everything opened! Which first made me happy and excited that everything worked, then made me sad and annoyed, because I shouldn’t NOTICE that everything worked.

withay · March 30, 2023, 8:35pm

Ok, I’m starting to look at the template, so Open is Tilt Position 50, not 100.

I took the example and SO FAR, I have THIS:

cover:
  - platform: template
    covers:
      office_blinds_simple:
        device_class: blind
        friendly_name: Living Room Blind 1
        open_cover:
          service: cover.set_cover_tilt_position
          data:
            tilt_position: 50
          target:
            entity_id: cover.living_room_blind_1
        close_cover:
          service: cover.set_cover_tilt_position
          data:
            tilt_position: 0
          target:
            entity_id: cover.living_room_blind_1
        position_template: >
          {{ int(states.cover.office_blinds.attributes.current_tilt_position)*2 }}
        set_cover_position:
          service: cover.set_cover_tilt_position
          data:
            tilt_position: "{{position/2}}"
          target:
            entity_id: cover.living_room_blind_1

Questions:
Fourth line “office_blinds_simple” What do I change that to?
20th line: “{{ int(states.cover.office_blinds.attributes.current_tilt_position)*2 }}” What do I change THAT to?
When I enter this template into my configuration.yaml (that IS where these go, right?), and I have one for all seven of my blinds, do I just do seven entries, one after the other, no skipped lines?

withay · April 7, 2023, 4:21pm

Oh come now, SOMEONE has to help!

burnski · April 11, 2023, 2:15pm

So im having problems also using the BlindTilt integration, maybe someone else has seen this?

When I use the HA integration over BLE, and set the blinds to 50% (which should be “fully open”) they never fully open. I have 2 blinds in my kitchen and each will randomly “open” to somewhere between 80-92% but never land on “fully opened”. For example:

Then when I try to close them (either way - to 0% or 100%) via the HA integration them they will frequently jam.

However if I use the local Switchbot app (over BLE or cloud) OR when I use the SmartThings integration they will work flawlessly to both open or close.

LeiChat · April 13, 2023, 12:30pm

Hi. I am new to HA but keen to understand what prevents the Cover card from working correctly with Switchbot Blind Tilt please?

Does the HA integration need a different platform template? Or is it something else?

Or is it because it’s not just a simple open and closed state like with the curtains?

withay · April 13, 2023, 12:44pm

Looks like this morning’s HA update broke the (or at least, my) integration. Anyone else?

withay · April 13, 2023, 4:43pm

And the current update to 2023.4.4 did not fix it.

withay · April 15, 2023, 2:15pm

Heh and two days later it was randomly working again. Well, working it’s usual intermittently, but that’s something.

burnski · April 21, 2023, 1:07pm

nope last update didnt make a difference. I dont think the integration can read the position of the sensor; it just know where it thinks its being “sent to”.

withay · April 22, 2023, 12:57pm

Seems so random. Goes from “unknown” to “opened 100%” and back and forth. Sometimes 4 of mine say “unknown” and 3 of them say "opened 100%.

Doing the templating… I don’t know, I did it correctly, and it works correctly, but… I think it confused HA even more.

Also my ESP32 Home, when I click it on the left, it says offline for 5 seconds, then online. What’s that doing to the blindtilts? Who knows.

withay · April 30, 2023, 3:15pm

Not sure who’s still following, but the template gives an error. Both the example on the integration info page, and when changed for personal use. I opened a github issue for it - someone posted and agreed when they looked. Waiting for the authors to help.

joshcrosby · May 1, 2023, 2:15pm

Yeah I get an invalid number error a lot of the time too. Not sure what is happening. Can you link the Github issue so I can follow?