Hey everyone! I’m sharing my Advanced Smart Blind Controller , an application designed to turn standard smart blinds into a proactive climate management system. This app moves beyond simple timers to manage your home's thermal load using solar geometry and temperature data, ultimately focused on reducing HVAC runtime and tracking your financial ROI.
Key Features
- Multi-Room Thermal Engine : Supports up to 10 independent rooms with granular logic for environmental control.
- Predictive Climate Logic:
- Solar Heat Mitigation : Automatically closes blinds during peak summer heat to prevent greenhouse-effect warming.
- Free Heat Collection : Logic that opens blinds during winter months when direct sunlight can help naturally heat the room.
- RF Reliability Suite (Wiggle Maneuvers) : Includes "Wiggle" recovery logic—if a blind command is suspected to have missed, the app can force a secondary move to ensure the verified state matches your target.
- Financial ROI Tracking : Integrates your local electricity rate to calculate estimated energy savings achieved by the blinds' thermal management.
- Virtual Aggregate Sensor : Creates a single virtual device that represents the weighted state of all blinds in the house, perfect for use in other automations or global dashboards.
- Telemetry Dashboard : A live, top-down view showing room temperature, lux levels, "Verified State" vs. "Target State," and the specific reason for every automated move.
- Safety Locks : Respects manual overrides and mode-based restrictions to ensure blinds don't move when they shouldn't (e.g., in a guest room or during "Nap" modes).
How to Use
- Room Configuration : Set up each room with its respective blind controller, temperature sensor, and lux sensor.
- Define Thresholds : Set your preferred temperature and light levels that should trigger thermal protection.
- ROI Setup : Enter your utility’s kWh rate in the Global Settings to start tracking financial savings.
- Monitor : Use the built-in dashboard to see exactly why the thermal engine is positioning your blinds.
Licensing & Support
This application is completely free to use, edit, and "steal." I built it to maximize the efficiency of my own home and wanted to share the logic with the community.
If you run into issues, have questions about the thermal math, or want to suggest new features, please feel free to ask! I’m happy to support the community and keep improving the code.
raw.githubusercontent.com/ShaneAllen334/Hubitat_Apps/refs/heads/main/Advanced_Smart_Blind_Controller/Advanced_Smart_Blind_Controller.groovy
Some information on a few of the features.
Sun-Facing Window Tracking
The application tracks the sun's path throughout the day by combining your defined window orientations with real-time solar data. During setup, you assign a facing direction (North, South, East, or West) to each room, allowing the engine to calculate exactly when a window is exposed to direct sunlight:
- South-Facing: These windows are treated as sun-facing throughout the entire day.
- East-Facing: These are sun-facing during the morning hours (before 12:00 PM).
- West-Facing: These are sun-facing during the afternoon and evening (after 12:00 PM).
Solar Heat Mitigation (Blocking the Sun)
To prevent your home from overheating during peak sunlight, the app uses two primary methods to block solar gain:
- High Solar Radiation Block: Using an outdoor lux sensor, the app monitors for intense sunlight. If the light level exceeds your set threshold (e.g., 10,000 Lux) and the window is currently sun-facing, the blinds will automatically close to block the heat.
- Active Cooling Defense: If your HVAC system is actively cooling the house and the engine identifies a window as sun-facing, it will close those blinds regardless of the light levels to prevent further thermal gain and assist the air conditioner.
- Summer Mode: When indoor or outdoor temperatures reach your summer thresholds, sun-facing blinds are closed to proactively keep the heat out.
Solar Harvesting (Winter Heating)
Conversely, during colder months, the app can be configured to use the sun as a free heater through Winter Heating Mode . If the indoor temperature is below your winter target and a window is sun-facing, the app will automatically open the blinds to harvest direct solar heat and reduce the strain on your furnace.
Astro Integration & Gradual Transitions
Beyond thermal management, the app uses astronomical data to handle daily transitions:
- Gradual Circadian Wakeup: Instead of opening the blinds all at once, you can enable a gradual wakeup that steps the blinds open in 10% increments over a set duration at sunrise.
- Sunset Security: The app automatically closes all eligible blinds at sunset (or a maximum evening close time) to ensure privacy and provide an extra layer of insulation for the night.
Looks interesting and far more advanced than what I'm doing. I'll give it a look!
I have my blinds variable closing depending on the Azimuth after sunset; winter they close quickly and summer they stay open much longer after sunset.
In the winter months I have them tilt to 30 deg depending on incoming lux direction/value to capture solar heat; summer is not that hot here so they are just open.
I don't have them track as I was worried about the battery usage. I just have them update every hour from open to 30 depending the the values above.
Let me know how it goes. The blinds I have don't allow me to set them other than open/close. So, if you run into issues with the ability to set them to a certain level let me know and share your logs.
