Not yet...still waiting patiently. @Sunsa, any updates on ETA?
Just noticed this (bolded below) when poking around on the Sunsa Indiego site. I had not completed this previously. Is this a required step to complete the shipping process?
Update Shipping Timeline
We Wanted to give everyone a quick update, the shipping boxes finally arrived, and we are now ready to start shipping out Sunsa Wands!
We will be emailing you tracking confirmation numbers once we ship, so you can track your orders.
We appreciate everyone’s patience and can’t wait to get the Sunsa Wand into your hands! As always if you have any questions please feel free to email us at contact@sunsahomes.com
Also, if you still have not completed your fulfillment survey, or you are a new backer, please do so or reach out and we can send you a new survey.
@danabw the survey is not required but is helpful. We are currently working through backers as quickly as we can, every week we get more Sunsa Wands out!
This looks interesting, the other one I like very much (and am currently using) is iBlinds.
A key feature on Sunsa's is the ability to control the blind via the wand attached to the blind. That is the main issue I have affecting WAF - she wants to be able to walk up to the blind and control it directly by using a wand or strings.
Just got notification that my Sunsa wand is finally going to ship. Looking forward to playing around with it.
Unfortunately wife doesn't want blinds in our remodeled bedroom so it won't be usable there. The wand will be most likely be relegated to the guest bedroom.
She doesn't want me to "mess around w/any other blinds in the house" so shhhh...mum's the word.
My Sunsa wand arrived last week. Had it installed and operational in about 15 minutes. Have to say, I'm impressed.
The only slight drawback is that if you do operate the blinds manually, you'll have to recalibrate the wand before using it again. if your WAF depends on being able to operate the blinds manually on a regular basis, this won't work for you. I have an Echo in almost every room and the Alexa integration works well, so it isn't an issue for me, and I don't anticipate having to manually operate the blinds very often, if ever.
Yes, this device does not have a local API - yet. That's why I only bought one, and only then because the backer promised a local API would be developed. I am really tempted to buy more of these to do my whole house, but it's a large investment and I don't want hundreds of dollars of useless devices if they don't make it and the cloud service disappears.
Having said that, I'm glad I took a chance on one, and as soon as there's a local API (even an early alpha or beta), I'll definitely buy more.
IAC, I've written a Hubitat driver for this. If anyone is interested, PM me until I have time to add Hubitat Package Manager support and publish it on Github.
Thanks for the info! Mine is scheduled to arrive early next week...similar to you only got one due to 1) No local API yet, and 2) WAF must be confirmed.
Yeah, if recalibration is required after every manual adjustment then it will be a no-go for us, unfortunately.
So what happens if you manually adjust the position and then send an open or close command. Does the wand just ignore it, or ?
I don't know. I suppose it's possible the wand detects that you're turning it without the motor being operational and ignores further commands until recalibrated. But I kinda doubt that.
More likely is that the wand will just assume it's at its last position and turn to the position it thinks it should, and your blinds may hit their limit. I don't know how strong the motor is or whether it will stop if it detects a limit being hit, but I don't want to chance damaging the wand or blinds by trying.
My wife likes telling Alexa what to do, so we rarely use physical switches, etc. around here anymore, But I always try to have a physical switch where feasible. In this case, perhaps a future version of the wand might have open and close buttons on the wand itself. The ultimate local api, in a way
Would you be willing to try opening the blinds to your default position, and then adjusting them to a different postion, and then send a close command?
That would be the most likely sequence my wife would engage in. I'd have them open automatically in the AM and close automatically in the evening, and she would want to tweak their position during the day.
You can't just turn the wand. There is a tab on the side of the wand near the top, which fits into a slot in a bracket that you attach to the blind header with double-sided tape. The tab fits in the slot, then is turned 90 degrees until it locks in place.
The tab and bracket are needed to keep the motor stationary, otherwise the wand would just spin when its motor was engaged rather than operating the blind mechanism.
So in order for your wife to tweak the position, she'd have to turn the tab and disengage the wand from the bracket, then adjust the blinds, then (hopefully) put the tab back in the bracket and turn it back to the locked position. And you'd likely have to recalibrate.
WAF would probably be about zero, and you run the risk of breaking off the tab, which probably wasn't designed to be turned constantly. It's one thing if your power or internet goes out and you need to operate the blind, but I don't think it was designed to be used on a regular basis.
Thanks for the reminder about how it works...I had imagined in my imaginary brain that there was an option to change the blinds position via the wand w/out disconnecting it for full manual control.
Yeah, the WAF on that would be, as my friend used to say "Less than zero."
I was going to make the suggestion of using a small button like Flic, but that doesn’t sound like it would get the job done for you.
We are thinking about making a remote in the future that would operate the Sunsa Wands, so maybe they would work? It would be built on top of the local API.
As to questions about local API, we currently working on it, but no timeline yet on release.
