Yeah, that is strange, now that I think about it. I wonder if the 12.3v marking represents a maximum, and it actually regulates it’s voltage based on the state of charge in the battery…
Anyway, the battery is pretty thin. I’d guess about 0.75" by 1.5" by 8" long-- but I haven’t measured that. So if you have 3/4" of space between the shade and the window frame, you could still fit it in there. I just looked at mine again and realized that I actually attached mine inside the part of the window that the lower sash slides up into. Except mine are 60/40 split, so the lower sash will never actually need to slide all the way up there.
My blinds arrived, so I put one of the batteries on a USB voltage/current tester and it outputs 12.2V. That’s pretty weird for MicroUSB, which I thought can only be 5V, and would be dangerous if someone tried to use it to charge a regular USB device. I can’t see a good reason that Somfy would use a MicroUSB connector instead of a barrel connector.
I haven’t installed the blinds yet, but they seem well built. Unfortunately, I ordered two AC chargers and only received one.
I have, however, added the blinds to openHAB…and these are unquestionably the easiest devices I’ve ever included. Press the button for seven seconds to reset them (without needing to exclude from the controller), then three seconds to include. One second for openHAB to find it, and five seconds for the channels to be picked up. If only every Z-Wave device worked this well.
