Solar Position Script

[dmurphy]

sparkman brilliant solution, thank you so much for sharing

[rge]

sparkman excellent work, thanks!

[sparkman]

sparkman brilliant solution, thank you so much for sharing

sparkman excellent work, thanks!

You're welcome, glad you found it useful.

Cheers
Al

[Moskus]

Thanks for this, sparkman ! I've been meaning to write this script for ages. I found the page you found, and started the cleanup.

Luckily I found your script when I was looking for som e of those constants, so it saved me the work!

[sparkman]

Thanks for this, sparkman ! I've been meaning to write this script for ages. I found the page you found, and started the cleanup.

Luckily I found your script when I was looking for som e of those constants, so it saved me the work!

You're welcome!

[jlikonen]

Hi Al,

This is really great script. Many thanks for sharing it.

[sparkman]

Hi Al,

This is really great script. Many thanks for sharing it.

You're welcome Jari. Hope all is well.

Cheers
Al

[langenet]

I am planning on using it with this device https://www.switch-bot.com for curtains that I have on a pole rode in my living room. I have a baby grand piano fairly close to the south facing window which we have to close the curtains to keep the heat of the sun off. Been thinking for quite some time how to automate but just found this device lately which may be my solution. There's an api apparently available... looking into it now...

Robert

[wkearney99]

And now I'm stumbling in, finding this. Nice. Seems to be calculating things right for me here in MD.

What're some thoughts on tying this with live luminance data?

I have some shades in the home office that are battery operated. Hunter Douglas, with bi-directional opening (top/down & bottom/up). I have them on scheduled open/close cycles and that's good for average days. But on overcast days it'd be nice to let in more light. The problem is during winter months, the low angle is bad for opening the bottom (shines in the eyes). But for summer it's the opposite, the sun being high in the sky means letting the top open is a problem.

I want to avoid twitching the shades too often, as it'd be annoying and waste battery life.

Any thoughts on the 'logic tree' to use for this?

I have the UltraRachio plug-in, and that has several weather-related values. Their current cloud cover value is largely unsuitable for shade management. I don't know how they determine it, but what it thinks is 'cloud cover' is nothing like what we have here on-site. Not unexpected though as that's not why they provide the data. They do have some 'weather conditions' fields that could be useful. An integer for various conditions and I could use that in conjunction with a live luminance value from an outdoor sensor.

I'm thinking, is the room occupied, is it daytime, is the outside light below a certain value, and is it forecast for "not sunny".

That would cover me for the baseline, the next branch would be to factor the solar data. Low/high winter/summer, and then use that to trigger a shade scene.

Sound about right? Any gotchas to consider?

[dmurphy]

I have a luimnance detector in room with shades....

run script after sunrise and before sunset, every 15 mins.....and luminance is greater than certain value.

Took some adjusting to get it right, but it works a charm

[dbrunt]

I have a luimnance detector in room with shades....

run script after sunrise and before sunset, every 15 mins.....and luminance is greater than certain value.

Took some adjusting to get it right, but it works a charm

Just make sure that the detected luminance when the shades are closed does not drop below the threshold trigger otherwise the shades will close-open-close-open every 15 minutes! You could possibly disable the event after triggering and then re-enable it some time later. That's where the adjusting part comes into play!

I put my luminance detector outside the shades so that could not happen. That way it detects the outside luminance, not the luminance in the room. Make sure the outside luminance detector can register a high enough value. Everspring ST-815 can not...it maxes at 3000 lux which a cloudy day can exceed. I'm using Mi (aka Lumi, aka Aqara) Zigbee sensors which register up to 83,000 lux...

[sparkman]

I have a luimnance detector in room with shades....

run script after sunrise and before sunset, every 15 mins.....and luminance is greater than certain value.

Took some adjusting to get it right, but it works a charm

I use luminance sensors with the scripts as well. They only send value updates on a relatively large interval so no issue with the shades opening and closing. I close the shades when it is bright and open them when it is not. I have some exceptions as well when it is cold outside and sunny, but no one is home or in the room then I open them to get the sun to help with the heating.