A fabric selection tool provides an automated procedure for recommending and/or selecting a fabric for a window treatment to be installed in a building. The recommendation may be made to optimize the performance of the window treatment in which the fabric may be installed. The recommended fabric may be selected based on performance metrics associated with each fabric in an environment. The fabrics may be ranked based upon the performance metrics of one or more of the fabrics. One or more of the fabrics, and/or their corresponding ranks, may be displayed to a user for selection. The recommended fabrics may be determined based on combinations of fabrics that provide performance metrics for various façades of the building. Using the ranking system provided by the fabric selection tool, the user may obtain a fabric sample and/or order one or more of the recommended fabrics.

A system, comprising: a storage workspace including a first framework defined by a series of first uprights, the first uprights supporting a grid of two substantially perpendicular sets of rails; and a plurality of containers for storing objects, wherein the plurality of containers are arranged in stacks, each stack of containers is located underneath a grid space in the workspace; and a grid extension including a continuation of the two substantially perpendicular sets of rails, and wherein the plurality of containers can be moved by one or more load handling devices between the storage workspace and an area beneath the grid extension, wherein the area beneath the grid extension is configured for positioning a roll cage such that containers can be placed or removed from the roll cage.

A shading and illumination system includes a shading device for shading viewing openings, an illumination device for illuminating a room, an external sensor for detecting an external parameter acting on the room, an internal sensor for detecting a 3D image of the room, a position of a person present in the room in the 3D image, and a viewing direction of the person, and a control unit for actuating the shading device and the illumination device. The shading device and the illumination device are actuatable depending on the values measured by the external sensor and by the internal sensor. A light parameter acting on the person is determinable depending on the detected viewing direction, on the detected position, on the 3D image of the room, and on the external parameter. The shading device and/or the illumination device are/is actuatable depending on the light parameter acting on the person.

Sensor intended to be positioned on a mobile portion of a deployable structure, and to emit an information signal to a transmission unit intended to be positioned on a fixed portion of the deployable structure, such that the sensor comprises a wireless emitter/receiver configured to receive an incident signal originating from the transmitting unit when the deployable structure is in a folded position; a processing logic unit adapted to decide on the emission of the information signal to the transmission unit by the wireless emitter/receiver; a standalone energy source configured to power the processing logic unit.

A low-power radio-frequency (RF) receiver is characterized by a decreased current consumption over prior art RF receivers, such that the RF receiver may be used in control devices, such as battery-powered motorized window treatments and two-wire dimmer switches. The RF receiver uses an RF sub-sampling technique to check for the RF signals and then put the RF receiver to sleep for a sleep time that is longer than a packet length of a transmitted packet to thus conserve battery power and lengthen the lifetime of the batteries. The RF receiver compares detected RF energy to a detect threshold that may be increased to decrease the sensitivity of the RF receiver and increase the lifetime of the batteries. After detecting that an RF signal is being transmitted, the RF receiver is put to sleep for a snooze time period that is longer than the sleep time and just slightly shorter than the time between two consecutive transmitted packets to further conserve battery power.

Sunshading louver control system and method based on gesture recognition are provided. Indoor images are collected in real time. Based on the indoor images, an action region of gesture motion is positioned and feature extraction is performed thereon to obtain hand motion parameters. The hand motion parameters are analyzed to obtain gesture information. The gesture information is compared with preset gesture information. When the preset gesture information contains the gesture information, corresponding adjustment is performed on a sunshading louver according to a preset operation logic corresponding to the gesture information. When the preset gesture information does not contain the gesture information, the gesture information is determined to be invalid. The lifting and rotation angles of the louver can be automatically controlled according to various gestures of indoor personnel, thereby rapidly realizing regulation of indoor illumination and natural ventilation quantity, and meeting the change of personnel's demand for indoor environment.

Methods and apparatus to operate a covering of an architectural covering are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a clutch to disengage a motor when the motor is not in use. The dual control architectural covering further includes a clutch to disengage a motor from moving a covering to facilitate manual operation of the covering of an architectural covering when the motor is not in use; and a controller: to track a covering position based on a first encoder measurement from a first encoder; and to track a motor position when the motor disengages based on a second encoder measurement from a second encoder different from the first encoder.

The method comprises determining that the clear day exists in response to the apparent diameter of the solar disc being similar to the expected diameter of the solar disc on the clear day and determining that an overcast condition exists in the camera image in response to the apparent diameter of the solar disc being distorted. The method may further include receiving a camera image of a sky section from a camera at a first location; segmenting the camera image into a first portion around a known position of a solar disc and a second portion of the remainder of the sky section containing an horizon; determining that the solar disc is obstructed by the horizon; and establishing that the first location is experiencing shadow conditions based on the determining.

A motor drive unit for driving a motor of a motorized window treatment may comprise software-based and hardware-based implementations of a process for detecting and resolving a stall condition in the motor, where the hardware-based implementation is configured to reduce power delivered to the motor if the software-based implementation has not first reduced the power to the motor. A control circuit may detect a stall condition of the motor, and reduce the power delivered to the motor after a first period of time from first detecting the stall condition. The motor drive unit may comprise a stall prevention circuit configured to reduce the power delivered to the motor after a second period of time (e.g., longer than the first period of time) from determining that a rotational sensing circuit is not generating a sensor signal while the control circuit is generating a drive signal to rotate the motor.

In one or more arrangements, a power efficient remote control system is presented. The remote control system has a touch based interface having a plurality of touch sensitive sensors. The remote control system is configured to operate in an active mode in response to user input and operate in a background mode in response to inactivity. In the active mode, a control circuit of the remote control system is configured to monitor touch activity by sampling signals from outputs from a plurality of touch sensitive sensors individually. In the background mode, power is saved by electrically connecting outputs of the plurality of touch sensitive sensors together and monitoring touch activity by sampling a signal from the connected outputs of the plurality of touch sensitive sensors together.