US - NEW! iblinds Kit v3

One blind opened.
Two did not.

:slightly_frowning_face:

I updated the drivers on all three yesterday and all three blinds were responding to open and close commands from the driver menu.

This morning one blind opened on time. Two did nothing. One could be opened from Hubitat dashboard. One is completely unresponsive. It doesn't even respond to the button on the blind.

Recall that all three seemed to be responding normally at 9:00 pm yesterday.

Obviously, I would not recommend these motors to anyone.

Came out this AM and one blind was open (the first one I installed) and the second blind hadn't opened. Responded promply to GH command to open, so either my automation didn't run properly or the mesh was wonky when it tried just after sunrise, or ? EDIT: I just realized that I had changed the automation to just toggle one blind (the one that opened) but set the other blind to change from open to 5% (almost closed) and back to open. So it not changing may be more about me not setting up the automation properly...I have to look into that.

EDIT to below: After some additional testing turns out one of the motion sensors in this automation has failed and is stuck on "Active." I had knocked it off it's perch a while back and it worked OK for a while after that, but evidently had a mortal injury and is no longer working properly. So not related.

I do have some other odd things happening which makes me feel that the blinds not opening may be more about HE than it is about the blinds. I have a very simple Motion Lighting automation (motion > light on, off after 3 min) that isn't running reliably...

I was going to chime in earlier that playing with new hardware at this time when there's a new platform version isn't really going to help with troubleshooting. Given I only have 1 motor to play with and my really only issue is that whining sound the first night I had it installed.

I modified my automation to use 'set level' and it's been working well so far, no weird sound or missed events.

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Hi all, just wanted to share my experience in the remote chance that it might help. I have 2 ZW blinds that for whatever reason will not work consistently 'on the hour'. I troubleshot with Bruce for a while and we never did get it figured out. It baffled us both as there was no reason why it shouldn't work. I had my blinds open at 8 & 9 am (weekday & weekend) and close at 9pm. They would not work consistently, or at all. I changed to 7:59am, 8:59am, & 8:59pm and they've been working perfectly for months. (during testing 8:01, 9:01, etc also worked).
FWIW

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Thanks for sharing. Gotta love how technology is sometimes as mysterious as it gets. :slight_smile: Maybe ticking under/over the hour put it in a just slightly less busy moment for the hub. Funny how things work.

FYI - I did some testing today w/help from @bertabcd1234, and confirmed that his driver is not updating the close tightness setting in the blinds:

image

For now I'm using the Basic Zwave Tool to update the parameter to my desired setting on each blind. Info here in his driver thread:

And Basic Z-Wave Tool link to Github for manual install is here:

I went through all blind settings with the new Community driver V3. I also needed to set blind tightness to the default 22. I set all opens and levels to 50.

I deleted the devices and blinds group in Alexa and restarted my phone. I sent the blinds to the Alexa app again and set up the blinds group in Alexa.

About four hours later, just now, I asked Alexa to close the blinds and all three blinds closed like magic.

I wonder if it is part of the mystery to let changes propagate through the Z-Wave network for a couple of hours before expecting changes to take effect.

I see consistently in this thread that the blinds work differently after a period of time with no other changes.

:no_mouth:

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Glad things are (for now?!) going OK.

I see this w/other devices as well...particularly Z-Wave Plus devices, which if left to their own devices are supposed to be able to work out improvements in their routing on their own. I had a case of myself this AM w/the blinds. One of them showed up initially w/a somewhat odd routing and a 9.6kbps connection speed. Looked back a little later and routing was improved and 40kbps speed. All I did was wait a bit. :slight_smile:

Not working now.

Alexa, set Blind 1 (or Blind 2 or Blind 3) to 50 (or 100 or 0) works sometimes changing one blind at a time.

A few times Alexa answered "You can only set the volume between 1 and 10".

:no_mouth:

Google home gets confused and thinks "blinds" is lights some of the time. So maybe Alexa thinks you're talking about some other device.

Yeah, mine is set as a blind device type as well...problem is when I say "Close (or Open) the Family Room Blinds" GH sometimes has heard "...the family room lights."

Just wondering if Alexa is doing the same thing sometimes and misunderstanding what you're saying.

Yes.

Me: "Alexa, open the living room blinds."

Alexa: (turns on living room lights, because apparently "opening" is a thing you can do to lights)

Me: "Alexa, open the living room BLLLLLIIIIIIIIINNNNNDDDDZZZZZZ," while frantically reaching for a button/switch to turn off the lights.

Alexa: (opens the blinds) :smiley:

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Exactly...but you forgot to include:

Family: "Ha ha ha...boy, you sure are an amazing home automation expert. Thank goodness you aren't automating the oven, the house would have burned down by now."

So I opened up one of my V3 units thinking I would fish out the antenna to get better reception when I install it.

However, I don't see anything that looks like an antenna - anyone done this before and have any idea what I'm looking for? :slight_smile: You can't tell from this pic, but there isn't anything on the other side or underneath of the PCB at the top. The only blue wire is connected directly to the motor...don't think that's it.

Maybe the option to do this isn't there on the V3? The instructions I found were for the V2:

4. External Antenna. Use your included hex wrench to remove the motor lid and carefully extend the blue antenna through the small hole in the lid and then replace the lid. Making the antenna external will eliminate one obstacle for the Z-Wave wireless signal and help improve the strength. From: iBlinds V2 Troubleshooting

The antenna is the 'square wave' looking thing on the vertical circuit board next to the white gear. If there is no external wire option installed then it doesn't exist (or at least not pre-installed). It looks like there may be a solder pad to the left of this, check the silk screen on the board to see if it indicates that it's for an external antenna. Most likely not, but there's no harm in looking.

Edit: Based on the location of this antenna, you'd want to have this on the room side if possible. Plastic doesn't affect RF signals much. Metal however (the motor) will block the signal. If you're having marginal coverage then you want to take any advantage you can.

Thanks! It appears there isn't an external antenna option installed/included. Here are some close-ups. Not sure if there is an intended option to add on an external antenna. Is it that "Wire Ant" hole at the top?

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We'd definitely need some feedback from iBlinds to be 100% certain but the solder pad next to the built-in antenna is labeled 'WireAnt' for a wire antenna. They must've included that in their design as a just in case. If you have any soldering skills then check with iBlinds to see what can be soldered to that pad to improve coverage.

I have a soldering iron, I have solder, I have limited soldering skills (been how many decades since I've done any soldering?!?). :wink:

I am going to send their support team an email right now on it.

Wondering what type of wire would be best for this - standard twisted electrical wire, or solid wire, or ?

It's been a while since I've done antennas, so please don't do anything until you get feedback from iBlinds. But I recall length is as, if not more, important as type (stranded vs. solid). According to calcs you'd need a wire ~3.1" long and 18 to 22Awg would work. My concern is that there is a resistor connecting both the internal antenna (R6) and another one connecting this pad (R8). R6 may need to be removed, I don't know. So before you even consider doing anything you'd need the blessing of iBlinds before any modifications.