Controlling a Virtual Shade (no level) through a dashboard tile

Dashboards
1

I have several motorized shades and motorized windows connected to a third party system integrated with a HE through the MakerAPI. All of these devices are either fully open or fully closed so I’ve represented them in HE as Virtual Shades (no level). What is the best way to control these devices using dashboard tiles? The standard shade template is a 0 to 100% slider, which isn’t applicable. I’m looking for something that will just trigger open or close.

Thanks in advance for the help

2

One option would be to setup a virtual button for each, setup a rule that controls each blind and add the virtual button to the dashboard.

3

Thanks @Sebastien . That would be a workable solution and I could use a virtual contact sensor to display a shade/window’s open or close state on a tile.

I have to think more about making it work through the Alexa integration too

Thanks again

4

I used to do this before I upgraded my shades to matter. My shades only had open close and one setpoint. I setup RM rules to change the position of the virtual shade on the dashboard based on the current position and what it was set to. For instance, If a shade was closed and I set it to anything between 1 and 50 on the dashboard it went to 50. If set above 50 it went to open.

In your case it would be simpler, if shade is closed and you change position send it to open and vice versa.

5

Thanks @terminal3 . I already went with @Sebastien‘s suggestion and setup virtual buttons for control and virtual contact sensor to show the open/closed state of the shades or window. It is working very well. It just takes up a little real estate on the dashboard.
However, I appreciate your suggestion.
Thanks again.

6

I should add that today I used a virtual shade and RM rules to get this all working with Alexa. There are rules that execute when the virtual shade hits open or closed. These rules push the button that triggers the third party system to move the physical shade. Then, after a short delay, the rule sets the virtual shade position to 50%. In this way the open or close voice command will always trigger a button press. This is necessary since a user could use the dashboard to operate the shade (this only pushes the buttons) and it will be out of synch with the virtual shade. Thanks again for your help @Sebastien and @terminal3 .