My wife had a window blind controller installed. Based on the pic of the controller, it appears to be a Smart Window device: Controller website
It is WiFi connected but wondering if anyone has interfaced to this hub?
There is a Home Assistant integration for iSmartWindow controllers (of which this is one). Easiest thing to do would be to spin up an HA instance, put the iSmartWindow integration on HA, then bring the device over to Hubitat using the excellent HADB integration on Hubitat. That's what I do for devices not supported directly on Hubitat. Works perfectly.
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Thanks for the info on HADB but that would be my last option as I do not want or need a HA hub/server (already up to my eyeballs in RPi devices for ham radio, weather, tracking aircraft using ADS, etc., etc.). If there are no existing solutions/drivers, I will look into developing one since I have another integration idea that does not currently have a driver.
Whatever. The best code is code that you don't have to write, debug, and maintain. Just my opinion. And yes, I have written thousands of lines of code in my day.
Being a retired IT professional, I know a bit about coding as well as supporting servers so know what I'm getting myself into.
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From what I can gather from that site, these use their own RF frequencies, and this hub you want to connect bridges those RF signals to Wifi, like a wifi controlled remote. So the hub just bridges wifi commands over to RF commands, the same ones used with the remotes shown on the site,
That makes me wonder if you need this bridge at all. It seems to be doing something very similar to what a Bond or Broadlink RF bridge will do. If those RF signals that the remote (and the bridge) use can be captured by a standard RF bridge device, you would not even need that bridge.
There are local drivers available for both Bond and Broadlink RF bridge devices from the community, that just use local wifi back to the hub. I guess you already bought this bridge hub for $250, but a Bond or Broadlink bridge is much cheaper and may be able to do the same thing with Hubitat driver support already there.
That assumes Smart Window does not use rolling codes or security in their RF signals, and that those RF commands can be captured by a Bond or Broadlink Device.
You correctly identified how the blinds connect to the hub. We have a remote as well as my wife has an app on her phone which both communications to the hub via our WiFi network. Additionally, I no idea what freq each of the blinds use to communicate with the hub. So, my idea is to find an API or method whereby I can communicate with the hub.
But if there are existing drivers for other bridges, I'm not opposed to consider that as an option. I was not able to identify these drivers, do you have any links or names?
Not to beat a dead horse, but just spin up an HA instance and call it a “HA Bridge”. You would have had that solution up and running in the time you have spent on this already. You can buy out-of-the-box preconfigured HA solutions (HA Green) that are plug-and-play for this purpose, and bridge to Hubitat easily with HADB.
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The Broadlink RM4 pro does RF. I have several Broadlink devices that I use with the driver.
It appears that the Bond driver is now built in to Hubitat, but I have never used it, I just knew it was out there.
Much thanks for the links/information... based on a Python library I found, it appears the remote and app both use WiFi to communication to the blind gateway, which in turn communicates with the blinds.
For now, I'm going to work with the Python library. If successful at controlling the blinds, I should then be able to write a HE driver or Node-Red flow to use the WiFi connection.
Ok. From the website, it really looks like the remotes use RF and IR:
" We supply several different kinds of remote controls to meet your different requirements.
We also supply 'Broadlink home automation universal IR+RF control' to let you control your motorised curtains and roller blinds remotely
You are correct. I was able to use the remote with the gateway powered off.
I've successfully controlled all of the 7 blinds using the Python library. I'm going to do some more testing using this method then look at creating a HE driver or build a Node-Red flow (already have both interfaced for other devices).
Power on! Looks like you just want to build this yourself, and build it off of what you already have, which is great. I was suggesting the easiest route, but I love to build my own as well.
Note this on their FAQ:
A. Yes, you can use either Broadlink RM Pro IR+RF Universal Hub or our new product - WIFI Bridge. Broadlink RM Pro is good, but WIFI bridge is much better. It's easy to connect and has more functions, it can control all of our RF motorised curtain and roller blind devices
So, they built a specific Broadlink type wifi bridge device that probably does RF codes for some of their other blinds that Broadlink cannot do. If you do not have those RF blinds, the bridge that you bought is just a specific use-case Broadlink-type device, with the codes built in.
Makes me wonder what happens if you connect the bridge you bought, using the Broadlink driver with the IP of your bridge.
