Didn't receive any responses to my earlier post, so trying again. I have 16 Smartwings Shades -- all with solar panels. Have had the shades for about 2-1/2 months now. My question is -- is the battery status correct for the shades? Out of the 16 shades, battery levels for 8 are now below 70%. I had previously had other blinds at the same windows -- all with solar panels and not once did the levels go below 97% so..., not understanding what the problem is unless the device driver is not property recording the correct battery level.
Is there any way that you could test the battery to find out if it really is at 70%?
Also, can you swap the solar panel from one unit that has high battery to one that has low battery? I would wonder if the panel, connection or the actual shade might has a problem…
Do Smartwing have an idea or a recommendation?
Have you tried letting those shades run down further to see if they actually reach 0% and stop working?
First of all, thank you for your response.
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I'm not sure how I would test the battery. I do know that if I plug it in to recharge, it will take a couple of hours to get to full charge.
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I haven't tried changing out the panels since they are glued to the window. I think I might have one though that I will reach to another one -- will try to test that out tomorrow.
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Tried sending problem to Smartwings -- they recommended another driver -- which I had tried before. The weird thing about that driver is that it specially states in its notes that the battery information is broken. Smartwings indicated a week or so ago that they would follow up with Hubitat -- haven't heard back from them. Sent them another follow up today.
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No, I have not tried running the shades down -- from its documentation, it should take approximately 6 months for that to happen. I'm at 2-1/2 months now. But was concerned since my prior blinds/solar panels never got lower than 97% for the same windows...
Anyway, will try to see moving the panel does anything. Thanks again.
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Maybe see if the ones that indicate a lower % charge take longer to charge to 100% than the ones that show a higher %?
Will be looking forward to hearing back how this turned out!
A quick question, do you have UV blocking windows? That may limit the effectiveness of the solar panels. They all come with a long usb-c cord. Unplug one of the solar chargers and see if a wall wart will bring it up to a higher level. My outdoor shades with solar chargers always stay at 99% for one and 95 for the other. Indoor ones that I use a plugin charger on charge to 100% and slowly drop over the course of several months. I top them off when the get to around 50%. I use the Smart wings Zigbee Shade driver for the indoor LR shades. Patio are Z-wave. The Smart wings driver will show the shade as being powered by AC when the solar panel is in direct sunlight. Otherwise power source is battery.
No, I don't have UV blocking windows. I'm now thinking, however, the problem has to do with me refreshing the shades a least twice a day -- on top of opening them. I automatically refreshed since the shades would stop at "closing" or "opening" and would stay that way. Only way, I could get them to give the correct status would be to refreshed. Took that routine off, now charing all of the blinds to full capacity, and seeing if that has anything to do with it.
Not sure why the shades periodically aren't giving me the correct status though.
It might be good to break this out a bit. smartwings makes shades for just about every home automation protocol out there. I use the zwave model and the smartwings z-wave shade driver. Mine are wired to an outlet and i see consitant battery reporting (@ 100%) every hour and on change.
What driver in hubitat and what protocol (zwave, zigbee, matter, homekit, ect) your shades are using might help narrow down your issue. Also how often do your shades report battery updates
All 16 of my shades are zigbee and connected to solar panels. I use the Smartwings Zigbee Shades driver (hubitat provided). The battery reporting only seems to happen when a change is made..
I would assume in your case the battery level reporting is probably correct at the time of shade change. Its odd the battery is not reporting any other time. To test on one of your shades.. enable debug logging -> save preferences. Then hit configure, wait a bit then hit refresh.
The events button at the top will show some important information and the logs button will too. between the data in events and logs you should be able to see if hubitat is showing what the device is reporting or if ther is some calculation going on. Also just hitting config “may” fix the issue.
It would be good to attach both here if you need any further assistance.
I had first thought that the refresh command was the culprit, but no longer think that since that command appears not to affect the battery status.
From the attachment, you can see that I charged the battery to 100% yesterday -- battery levels went from 100% to 98% to 94% and back to 97% -- in less than one day -- with solar panels attached.
BTW, the battery status is only changing upon a command. Not sure how to get updated battery status. I'm using the built-in device driver for these zigbee shades. Is this what others are using?
I use the built-in Smart wings Zigbee Shade driver for the indoor ZigBee shades. Looking through the logs is appears that they report battery level when there is a position change. I just tested this with one that read 100% but never gets used. I moved it a bit and it now reports 89%
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