When Good Devices Have Bad Drivers Vol.1 MechoShade C4 2 Zone Zigbee Interface

It is only too often that we find an awesome piece of equipment with a driver that just does not work. Now it is getting even more difficult to modify those pesky driver with the addition of DriverWorks and the ability to encrypt drivers. So where does that leave us? Programming work arounds thats where.

Recently i was able to put the MechoShade C4 2 Zone Zigbee interface through the motions. The device is one of the easiest blind controller modules I have ever seen. Simply plug it into the motors RJ45, Id it in the project, and your done. It is smaller than the Card Access pieces with a better mounting method, and no batteries or transformer required.

Then I moved onto control and here’s where it all went bad. I would expect a driver like this that once added it would pop up on the navigators right? No way. So then you would normally think, I’ll just add a Blind in and bind it and be done. Nope not happening either. After trying this method I did get blinds on the navigator but no control. So whats next? How do I control this easy to install blind controller?

First you need to have 3 things loaded in the project for this set up to function properly.

1 The MechoShade 2 Zone Interface Driver

2 A standard dual relay blind driver

3 a 6 button keypad driver “Why the 6 button key pad? I’ll explain that shortly”

So to start off we will want to get all the 2 zone interface device actions associated with the 6 button keypads device events. Note that the 6 button could be real or a dummy 6 button. We are mostly using it as a place marker for all the blind controllers actions. MechoShade did a very good job of giving us a device that is capable of more than just up and down. This controller does up, down, stop, and through programming 3 set levels. This is a big jump from what most people are used to when integrating blinds with Control4.

So the six button programming should look like this.

Button 1: open/up

Button 2: Stop

Button 3: Close/Down

Button 4: Go To MidPoint1

Button 5: Go To MidPoint2

Button 6: Go To MidPoint3

So now you have physical control with a real 6 button keypad or virtual control with ghost 6 button keypad. So now how do I get this on Navigator?

The most reliable way is simple. Go to the dual blind relay that i told you was needed earlier in programming. and program each of the blind relay device events “starts going up, starts going down, stops” to the press action of the associated button on the 6 button you created earlier.

So why Did I not just program “when dual relay blind starts going up > open shade motor on port a of MechoShade interface? Consistency is why. For some unknown reason, “which may be because they are both a blind proxy”, when programming is done this way it is not consistent. Sometimes they will go up sometimes they won’t. Some times there is even a 3 minute delay. Though testing using this 6 button method has proved to be consistent on every press.

Now there are still 3 more actions left right? The 3 mid points. These could easily be added as a custom button. Or if you are fancy enough base them off a scheduler. Blinds make great ambient light controllers. So if you set schedules you can effectively have the blind set at a certain level based on the amount of sun pouring in.

So there you have it. This is my my first what to do with good devices with bad drivers. If you guys have any suggestions on more great devices with bed drivers feel free to drop me a request!

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