Hi,
I’m looking to deploy light sensors for the purpose of shutting rollershutters when the sun comes around to certain rooms during summer and possibly to detect sun down in the evening. Some research showed that Enocoean based sensors could provide a promising solution, especially because they don’t need maintenance.
However, before buying some of those I’d like to gather some recommendations. Can anyone provide me with experience in this direction?
Thanks in advance!
Toby
Wouldn’t you be able to accomplish this using the astro binding and use the sun’s position to determine when to open and close a shade? That would prevent you from having the indoor lights from causing the shades to close.
I would suggest the approach from @B34N too.
Even if it doesn’t turn out to be the best solution, you should give it a try because it is much cheaper and easier than multiple light sensors.
I just stumbled across the astro binding once again this weekend and thought about solving the task with this one in combination with temperature values from my Netatmo or a weather forecast maybe.
I think the “azimuth” is the correct value to look for here, right? Can someone tell me if this value is independent of the day, so it tells me the sun angle for my position, right?
The solar elevation is likely to be a little more useful, assuming everything between your windows and the natural horizon are about the same height. This is likely “close enough” to be useful.
The azimuth would come into play if the buildings and trees outside your window block the sun differently depending on the time of year. Combining solar azimuth and elevation to essentially map out the objects that cast shadows on your windows would give you a perfect ability to predict when the sun could reach your windows. Add in the weather binding for cloudy conditions, and you will have covered all possibilities, short of the empirical reliability of an outward-facing light sensor.
Hey Toby
I use a combination of Fibaro FGMS, weather and astro binding…
When the weather forecast replies a sunny day, I open my venetian blinds only a Little. After the astro binding reports, that the sun is moved away, I open the blinds complete. Additional I have a FGMS mounted, so if the weather forecast is wrong (what happens from time to time ;-)), it shut my blinds, if there is to much light in the rooms.
Regards
Michael
PS: If you like to have more Information, let me know…
Hi Michael,
thanks for the information, that sounds promising. 
I started tracking the sun around my house with the astro binding to determine sensible values for the shut/opening process. However, since the weather turned bad here, I did not have enough opportunities to validate the thresholds, yet. How did you determine the corresponding values and which astro properties do you use?
The Fibaro looks promising, so I will consider that for the full-fledged solution you described for next years summer. Can you give me a hint how big the sensor is? From the packaging it looks quite large and not very pretty so I would need a good place for it.
Thanks for your support!
Cheers
Toby
Hey Toby
May you have a look at http://www.sunearthtools.com/dp/tools/pos_sun.php?lang=de
Ist much more comfortable than watching the sun all day 
May it also helps you to prevent moving your home to a sunnier place 
I started with this side to calculate the approximate values. The finetuning I did (on sunny day’s) by noting the time an looked at the right angle on this Website.
The fibaro FGMS-001 is pretty small (about 4 cm Diameter). I mounted it directly on the wall and you don’t see it, if you don’t look for it.
If you like, I can can send you a Picture.
Regards
Michael
Hi Michael,
nice one, this is really convenient. Thanks a lot for mentioning, I really would have missed that. 
4cm sounds pretty fair. A photo would be much appreciated.
Thanks, Michael!
Toby