OK, the SmartWings folks solved the problem. The solution is as follows:
You need to do this for each shade. I am using the SmartWings zigbee driver. I assume this ought to work with z-wave as well.
Apparently, this does something to reverse whatever command is sent to "open" or "close." When telling Alexa to "open" the shade, the shade retracts so you can see out the window, and vice versa.
The set position command, for example, will leave 20% of the shade open if you say "set position of shade xxx to 20." At this juncture, I don't remember how it worked prior to updated my shades, but I can live with 20% meaning 20% open, 60% being 60% open, etc.
Since my Alexa integration is via the Home Assistant hub, I think in my setup it's all working correclty now. I can easily reverse the direction in the Adaptive Cover integration I described in an earlier post.
Thanks one and all for your advice and help!
