US - NEW! iblinds Kit v3

You should see how it works in my house: I tell my wife "Honey, open the shades..." to any percent between 0 and 100 and she will respond "If you interrupt me one more time during a Zoom meeting I'm going to shave your head bald while you're asleep." and the blinds don't move at all. Not sure how to troubleshoot this...

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Shade/blind responses have always been wonky (don't know why, they just are) so to avoid the Alexa problem I have an intermediate virtual dimmer to do their control. Alexa is just changing a virtual value (so it works every time) and then I let RM do the actual blind/shade control. If the Alexa thing bugs you then you can try that.

I have to say that I am really impressed w/the reliability and responsiveness of the iBlinds since FW 3.03 and later w/the stronger radio settings. 99% of the time it's just worked exactly as desired. The few times I've had issues look more like HE issues than problems w/the blinds themselves.

My wife has been using the above additional control I set up for her w/the Pico, and it's working exactly as expected. She now feels like she has enough control over the blinds. I.e., she can micro-manage them to her heart's content. :wink:

I want to try the Sunsa (just because they have a simpler manual option w/the blind wand that my wife would love) but they don't have local control, so until that is enabled they will likely stay on my "do not buy" list. Just don't want to get stuck w/out local control if they don't get there for some reason...yes, I've been hurt before. :wink:

Everything is working but your description is enticing!

LOL...the urge to FW update is a lot like the urge for the power of the Dark Side of The Force. :wink:

I just started playing with the "cube". Surprisingly, my wife loves it!

I'm going to start experimenting with a "spin left" - close blinds, "spin right" - open blinds rule.

It may be possible to configure the cube to adjust the level with variable spin left and right like a dimmer.

I will report back.

:slightly_smiling_face:

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Sounds interesting, and if you had kids around I could see them playing a game w/it, and the blinds wildly flaying around. :wink:

The cube would probably not work w/my wife...she has this interesting issue where she confuses left and right, been that way since I met her in her 20's. I'll say "turn left at the next corner" and sure enough, she'd turn right more often than not. :slight_smile:

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I never got around to controlling the blinds with the cube.

I just finished setting up this button.

Push to open the bedroom blinds.

Hold to close.

$14.60 from China.

Simple!

Any issues with staying connected?

With the button?

Too early to tell.

I know that can be an issue with Xiaomi/Sonoff/Mi etc.

I am trying to solve that with a few Zigbee repeaters, etc.

I am willing to put up with some issues considering the price.

Hopefully Zigbee 3.0 will help with new devices going forward.

That's a dangerous biutton - in my case messed up my network so I had to retire it and mailed it off to one of our forum members w/a mesh designed to support it. Hopefully you won't experience the same...

"Dangerous Button"

I don't like the sound of that!!

How so?

Meanwhile, I'm doing the OTA firmware update on the first iBlind. It seems to be going OK but SLOW. Maybe 3-4 hours at this rate.

Is that normal?

I and others have found it did not play well w/others...messed up my Zigbee devices in the area around it. I had to remove it in the end and no longer use it.

I don't remember, frankly, been a while since I did mine, but hours seems longer than I remember.

It's been almost five hours but it just ticked up to 92%, so, it's still going! I noticed the Z-Wave repeater plugged in under the blinds blinking it's green light occasionally.

The good news is that I did a long push on the Dangerous Button and all four blinds closed so at least the failed update didn't hurt anything!

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I still have S2 security on for that blind. I have a vague recollection of that being a problem with OTA updates. I guess I should exclude, reset, and re-discover and try again.

Everything is working perfectly, though.