Smart Window Blinds

Today is day of transitional weather for us in Portland. After a long run of sunny days that've browned our lawns and toasted our skin(s?), we've been experiencing the rain showers mixed with clouds, and then sudden glorious, blinding sun.

During the cloudy/rainy periods, I open my blinds wide to enjoy the filtered sunlight that makes this city so attractive to me. But, when the sun bursts forth, my screen bleaches out and my retinas scream, and I stumble blindly to the, um, blinds, and yank them to. Ahhhhh.... sweet darkness. Then I scuttle back to my desk.

Being a cliche lazy slacker-type technophile, the whole time I'm doing this I whine, "Why can't these close automatically? It's frickin' 2005, for crimeny!"

I searched Google, and found a couple good leads, which I'll include here, but none of them really fill my need. They basically hook a stepper motor to the little angle rod on a venetian blind to increase or reduce exposure based on a light sensor of some kind. I need more than this.

Since I work on a computer, the _angle_ of the sunlight streaming into the room is as, if not more, important than the amount of sunlight admitted. What I'd like to see are blinds that can analyze the angle of the sun to the surface of my computer screen and adjust themselves accordingly to avoid beams landing on that surface. On the other side of the room (in front of me, past my screen) I need blinds that won't let beams of light directly into my eyes.

Okay, I admit, this concept is not an easy one to make reality. It'll require some way of sensing the angle of the sun to the window (perhaps some variation of a sundial?). In addition, I think the user would have to indicate the location/angle of their screen and/or eyeholes -- maybe through an interactive setup session, where the user angles the blinds to allow maximum view through them to the outside, and thereafter they are programmed to avoid that angle at all costs. And I haven't fully worked out exactly how it will control the amount and angle of sun -- perhaps a dual-venetian blind, one vertical and one horizontal. Or some combination of LCD privacy screen and metallic reflective blinds...