Bathroom blind

This recipe describes the lifecycle of the window blind in the bathroom. I want the blind to be open between 8:30 am and dusk and closed between dusk and 8:30 am.

On top of that, the blind faces east so in the early morning the light can be blinding, so I want the blind to open gradually, especially when it is sunny. However, if I decide to open the blind manually before time, then I don't want Ambience to close the blind automatically again.

Requirements

• Bathroom blind - Cover entity to control the blind and which exposes the current position of the blind.

Scene: Nighttime

The clearest condition is the Nighttime scene where the blind should be closed between dusk and 8:30 am:

Close cover (safe)

We have used the built-in Close cover (safe) action, which first checks the position of the cover and only closes the blind if it is not already closed, to avoid activating the blind motor.

Scene: Daytime

The second scene specifies that the blind should be open between 8:30 am and dusk.

Note that the Daytime scene doesn't specify a time-of-day. That's because we know that if the Nighttime scene (which only matches between dusk and 8:30 am) doesn't match, then any scenes after that are guaranteed to be in the daytime range.

Scenes: Sun low in East, Sun mid-low in East

Next, I want the blind to open gradually to prevent the sun from shining into the bathroom too brightly. To accomplish this I add two scenes:

Sun low in East:

• the sun is in the NE, E, or SE quadrant,
• the sun is no more than 35º above the horizon,
• and the weather is sunny.

→ Opens the blind to 30%.

Sun mid-low in East:

• the sun is in the NE, E, or SE quadrant,
• the sun is no more than 45º above the horizon,
• and the weather is sunny or dim.

→ Opens the blind to 50%.

The first scene only matches if the weather is sunny. The second matches if the weather is sunny or dim, and if the weather is dark then neither matches.

Problem: Don't override manual opening

If somebody opens the blind manually then we don't want either scene to match, otherwise Ambience would immediately close the blind to 30% or 50% again. To accomplish this we add an entity state condition to check that the blind position is lower than the position we're about to open to (i.e. 30% or 50%).

Because these two scenes use the entity state condition (which has a high priority), they would normally be sorted above the Nighttime scene, but we need the Nighttime scene time-of-day condition to act as a gate for the daytime scenes, so we manually move it to the highest priority.

Problem: Opening the blind triggers reevaluation

Because we check the blind position in Sun low/mid-low in East, if we were to open the blind manually then it would trigger reevaluation of the scenes and potentially stop opening at 30% or 50%. To avoid this we can add a scene that blocks evaluation while the blind is opening or closing:

Lifecycle

Trigger	Matched Scene	Action
Dusk falls	Nighttime	Blind closes
At 8:30 am, blind is closed, sun is in the East at 25º above the horizon, and the weather is sunny	Sun low in East	Blind opens to 30%
At 8:30 am, blind is closed, sun is in the East at 25º above the horizon, and the weather is dim	Sun mid-low in East	Blind opens to 50%
At 8:30 am, blind is closed, sun is in the East at 25º above the horizon, and the weather is dark	Daytime	Blind opens to 100%
At 8:30 am, blind is fully open, sun is in the East at 30º above the horizon, and the weather is sunny	Daytime	Blind remains open
At 9:05 am, blind is open to 30%, sun is in the East at 36º above the horizon, and the weather is sunny	Sun mid-low in East	Blind opens to 50%
At 9:45 am, blind is open to 50%, sun is in the East at 46º above the horizon	Daytime	Blind opens to 100%