US - NEW! iblinds Kit v3

Almost sounds like they know their internal antenna is marginal and just don't want to admit/address it. Glad to hear you got your kitchen shade online. My blinds are in route so I'll have something to play with over the holidays. :smiley:

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Yeah...it was really weird. I kept going back to my emails to confirm I had asked them again. I may try one more time as I am interested in it generally. If you guys don't hear back from me in the next 24 hours, please send help! :wink:

This would be my only one advise. I'm using the iblinds v3.1 driver from their link since the automations are working properly, I didn't touch that again. HE firmware 2.2.3

Are you choosing not to upgrade to 2.2.4 or has it just not come up yet?

Choosing not to at the moment since things are working. The only thing I'm missing that I'm interested in is the Hub Mesh but it's not that big enough of a loss to make me try and risk.

I'm probably one of the few holdouts :smiley:

I really don't understand you calm, mature people who don't compulsively hit the update button the moment it appears. :wink:

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The times I have updated something working perfectly early and regretted it far outweigh the times I have updated early and fixed a problem.

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Well, there is no joy in Mudville (again).

Kitchen blinds fell off the mesh again. No response to commands from Device page or automations (since early this AM) and no log entries on any action attempted. Looked fine in Z-Wave Details page but when I rebooted it showed up w/no routing.

Tried a quick button press on the blinds to do an open/close to confirm battery was OK, and instead of closing (it was open) it did a full calibration run. It had been calibrated before so not normal.

I rebooted the hub and it showed up in the Z-Wave Details page w/not routing, hit Refresh and it showed up failed. Tried multiple Refresh to no avail, so used Remove option which did remove it.

I'm going to put a different motor in that location to see if this really is just a bad location for the mesh/antenna, or if that motor has "issues" that will mean I have to return it for a replacement. It had very good routing while it was on the mesh, routing through two nearby 100kbps connected devices.

:frowning:.

I'm very interested to hear this because I was looking for a Z-wave blinds solution. Does iblinds work with both horizontal and vertical blinds? Does it allow both opening/closing of the blinds and drawing them open/closed? Does it have a solar power solution like some of its competitors?

They only do horizontal blinds as far as I know. The blinds can be opened, closed, and set to specific percentage open or closed. They do have a solar power option.

Not to gloat but my entire Z-Wave network is working perfectly this morning. No bad devices.

My iBlinds opened perfectly this morning as well. I suspect that much of our iBlind frustration was/is related to Z-Wave issues.

/end_gloat

:slightly_smiling_face:

Sounds like gloating is called for!

I'm pretty much the same, my two blinds that are still installed closed last night and opened this AM, and the rest of my network is humming along. So call mine a mostly-gloat, since I have the one blind that keep falling off. :wink:

Had an interesting problem tonight installing a motor in one of my blinds. There was not enough room between the blind rod and the corner of the chager/button unit. Just would not fit.

Luckily, my blinds have an opening on the bottom and front of the blinds in that location, so I rotated the charge/button unit on its side so the button and USB port point out the front of the blinds, rather than down. In some ways better, as the blinds don't get too close or even touch the button as they do on one of my blinds, but also going to make charging the unit a little more complicated. I'll have to remove the wooden valence that's on the front of the blinds as the USB cable will be sticking straigt out from the front of the blinds.

My other blinds didn't have this issue. I might even end up liking this arrangement more than the nomal one.

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If there's nothing on the end then why not just cut the rod? From the picture it looks like you're on the end.
Side note, just got most of my stuff this weekend (they forgot to ship my solar panels so I have to wait). And of course my blind's rod is dead center so I have to start cutting holes in the frame. So it'll be sometime before I get to get these online. Grrrr.

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Bummer about your needing to make customizations. Makes me realize how lucky I was that mine are going in pretty easily. Have fun w/your hacksaw. :slight_smile:

I was going to cut the rod, but it was just quicker/easier late last night to mount it the way I did to get it up and running for my wife and let her play with it a bit (I've set up automations, but she also has a Pico to control them).

She has run hot and cold on the blind automations, which is a bit annoying. At first she thought it was great when I put it on one window in the family room. Then I automated the window over our kitchen sink and she didn't like that at all, felt like she'd "lost control" because on that window it's close enough so she can easily reach the cord controls. (Which she never uses, but whatever... :wink: )

She does want the blinds in our office automated (at least right now) so I figured I'd better get them up immediately while she was still positive about that, and also not make any changes that weren't 100% reversable in case she changed her mind (again). Being a home automation hobbyist can be a lonely life at home... :wink:

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Just two days later and it's like Mardi Gras here...confetti and beads are all over the place, drunken millennials are stumbling around, and a fireworks show is planned for later tonight!

:wink:

Four blinds are now automated. Four blinds were open as expected when I arose to greet the dawn. (Actually I greeted "the 8:14 AM" as I way overslept, but you know what I mean.)

On top of that, my wife gave rave reviews this morning:

  • "It is really nice to come out and have the blinds already open, and close when it's getting dark."
  • "I really like being able to use a Pico to open and close the blinds." (when she has Zoom meetings she needs to close the office blinds so she isn't back-lit)
  • "It's OK to automate the blind in the kitchen." (The one she was upset about a couple days ago for some "I'm from Mars, she's from an entirely different universe" reason.) :wink:

I'm going to write all this down, get her to sign it, and put it into our safety deposit box. :smiley:

Last motor is on the way for the third blind in the office, at which point we'll have three office blinds and two family room/kitchen blinds automated. That will be it until the remodel which should start (waiting on permits) in early 2021. Assuming the iBlinds behave themselves I'm planning on automating blinds in the area we're building out.

Did you get your temperamental blind to behave or is iBlinds replacing it? I'm expecting my solar panels this week so I'm planning on doing my hacking this weekend so we'll see how they work out.

I'm testing a FW build from iBlinds w/connectivity changes in it to see if it helps. So far it appears to improve things. I was able to exclude and include the blinds farther away and through a closed door to the hub - previously I could not include or exclude the blinds from that location - I had to have them in the doorway in line-of-site of the hub. So that part was much better. The real test is letting them run for several days to see if they stay connected.

If they stay connected (and nothing else blows up) then I'm going to hopefully be able to declare victory and give iBlinds the thumbs up on the changes. :slight_smile:

Really great that your blinds are working, but I think your front door lock isn't working.

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