Overview
Overall, the system was successful as a proof-of-concept, but much more work would be done to actually make the design a viable product. The shade control system software worked quite well on the bench, but when the actual hardware was mounted on the shade, problems with slippage were significant. The basic idea of automatic control of lights and shades in response to ambient lighting was tested to work well by using a flashlight to simulate “lights” and covering the sensor to simulate “dark”. However, without full scale integration and installation in some room, real usability testing was hard to simulate.
Reliability and Usability
System reliability, particularly with respect to the web interface, was also a problem. While the web interface works, it also has a tendency to sometimes cause the Light Controller to lock up and require a reset. The connection between the shade and light controller was more reliable, but also occasionally experienced problems. The touch screen interface was also somewhat fiddly, mostly due to the problems of using resistive touch screens. These problems make the system less usable for an average user. While they can be worked around by the system desires, a much greater level of reliability would need to be achieved to make the system marketable to a broader audience of people who do not want to have to regularly fiddle with their automatic shades when connections break.
Safety
Despite its problems, the system does tend to “fail well”. In other words, the automatic jam detection means that even if the network crashes in the middle of motion, once the endpoint is reached a jam will be detected, and motor motion will be stopped. This prevents the user from coming home to a broken, tangled mess of shades because some part of the network failed. Furthermore, even if the network system dies, the user can still control the shades manually using the buttons on the shade controller itself, meaning they will not have to uninstall the system to still be able to open their shades.