Smart Blind Automations
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- Опубліковано 7 кві 2023
- My smart blinds are probably the second most used set of automations in my new smart home, after my smart lights.
In this video I show you how I automated my blinds in my new home.
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My Blind Automations: www.homeautomationguy.io/blog... - Навчання та стиль
The amount thoughtfulness is next level. I commend you sir.
I'm glad you find it useful!
Great stuff…thanks for the programming walk through. Keep up the good work.
Very helpful! Thanks for sharing.
I started with a single Zemismart curtain system 3 yrs ago in combination with Google Home voice control and now and then the included remote control (I think RF signal?). Now we're moving to a new appartment and decided to automate all curtains and blinds and ordered 6x curtain and 6x innertube blind motor again from Zemismart. In november I will start 'experimenting' with the solar charge system (and usb charge cable as a backup if needed). Next step is the real home automation phase --> automated routines. So your guides are helpful!!
Before buying I did some research between several known and lesser known suppliers. Came back to Zemismart. Very good (Dutch cheap) pricing and the quality is also good. It does what it needs to do.
Loving the new series!
I'm glad! Thank you!
Have exactly your setup by the looks, started with the E1 Driver to test a few of my blinds, changed to the Zemismart in Blind Motors and then bought many more to outfit the house. Had similar experience with the batteries over time, some of the larger blinds have required more frequent charging - but overall positive experience (Paring with Hubitat)
Alan, I love your videos! Keep em coming! :) I have a suggestion for a video. Even though you have recently bought a ready made home, which you will make the best smart home ever, I would like to suggest you to make a video where you ponder even more green field smart home, which would be a plan of a completely new home from scratch. What infra would you build there, especially where would you build wires neatly inside the walls and what kind of, just to prepare for all kinds of smart home needs.
Nice work. Personally I use the IKEA blinds and I have to say the battery life is super ( I have recharged them 1 time in a year of use, maybe twice) and I have had no connection issues and best of all they are very reasonably priced.
Great to hear!
I use the ZigBee tuya AM43 with a built-in battery and solar panel. I made a smaller chain so the controller goes closer to the top of the window. So less ugly, I then use a Moes ZigBee scene switch with up and down labels for guests. All work well with Zigbee2mqtt with Home Assistant. Great automations definitely learned some additional information on automations for my blinds.
I was thinking this through the whole video. Just shorten the chain! Also solar charging, nice touch!
@@chublez I did think of shortening the chain, but then the physical buttons to make it go up and down are unreachable. Using a scene switch is a nice work around though. Great solutions!
I wish there were more vids about automation ideas, so thanks a lot. I have an automation closing the curtains in the living room at midday when it's hot. I have pretty big windows. Without this automation, I'd have to turn on the AC. The automation will open the window anytime the weather is cooler later in the day.
Nice one! I am probably going to be adding similar automations when it comes to summer and I learn how warm my house gets!
I'm building a house, due to be ready in a month or so. It's been good to see your ideas, I will be implementing a few. Blinds are one of the things I've been thinking of, thanks.
Glad it was useful!
Hey friend, did you end up finding good smart blinds? I'm researching on which ones are good and I have no blinds at the moment.
Mateeeeeeee! the last part of your vid about your automation (the toggle boolean in particular) has just helped me with my current conundrum. pays to watch vid till the end.
oh, and I think, in my experience with aqara blind drivers, the battery is a lot more long lasting.
Glad you learned something!
Great video. One other blind automation you may want to consider is to have them close on the sunny side of the house if the outside temperature is higher than inside to prevent solar heat gain. We have a mix of blinds and curtains on the south facing rear of our house and closing the windows and blinds is a great way of preventing the sun from warming the house too much when it gets too hot outside. I have a "Heatwave Alert" automation that triggers when the outside temperature is above the inside temperature for more than 5 minutes. It then plays Nelly's Hot in Herre for 60s while closing the blinds and curtains. If we have any windows open, it delays closing that blind or curtain until the window has been closed. It does the reverse when the temperature outside drops below the temperature outside. Very cool.
That's a great suggestion - but I live in the London where there are rarely "sunny sides" to houses, it's always grey and cloudy
Absolutely love the musical notification though, reminds me of my 20's in shitty Sydney nightclubs 🥰
@@HomeAutomationGuy For the UK you generally want to maximise solar gains rather than minimise so on the off chance there is direct sunlight through the window and the room is unoccupied it is worth automating the blinds to open and then close again when there is no longer direct sunlight, that way you can maximise the free heat from the sun and also minimise the heat loss through the windows (generally more relevant with curtains or cell blinds though), obviously this would need a lux sensor in the window. I have this setup running for the lounge curtains which have two different aspects so the curtains operate independantly of each other but the automations only run if the room is unoccupied, this way during the day when nobody is in you can maximise the heat in the room with minimal help from the boiler
@@HomeAutomationGuyI love the Aussie accent. Sounds like my husband
Just been through this pain myself, 3m blind with a 50mm tube, the motor I eventually found was more for metal roller shutters. I had to 3D print all the inserts and brackets, got it working in the end and it works like a charm.
I definitely need to get into 3D printing.... Thanks for sharing your solution!
Good info for blinds. My windows all have corded curtain tracks. Haven't seen a good solution for these yet.
I also have a bifold door, need some blinds that fit against the glass super low profile.
I do agree, smart blinds and smart lights would be the two most used things by me also.
I have the older style aluminium venetian blinds, and I use the Blind Tilt from Switchbot, which come with a solar panel to keep the batteries recharged, and full local control via bluetooth. Never had an issue :)
Many thanks I'll have a look, fancy a hubitat & get the zigbee ones. Going to make the switch from wifi to zigbee, can anyone let me know, will I need a separate zigbee hub as well (still new to all of this) ?
@@richardsmith746 Hubitat an Smartthings (Aeotec) do have Zigbee as well as Zwave built in if I recall correctly. If you go Home Assistant, it depends on the hardware options. Home Assistant is a software hub and you basically BYO hardware.
Brilliant many thanks Brendan.
I use Lutron's Serena blinds, and they are expensive but work perfectly. I also use Bali, cheaper, but much noisier and we can only use a remote for them.
Very interested in trying to retrofit other blinds that are fine, but are large so would be extremely expensive to completely replace.
We've got Somfy blind motors. They are fantastic! The battery ones last at least 6 to 8 months before charging is needed. We have four types of blinds. The black out blind is in the bathroom (East facing), perfect for that bright morning light. We also have wooden slat blinds on East end West facing rooms, which can be controlled via HA to tilt 180 degrees, or to be opened or closed. We have Venetian blinds, they are great, They're in our conservatory and are wired in. We have them on each window pane and on the roof. Finally we have a Roman blind in our passage or staircase. These are battery powered as well, and they can be a lot more configured with patterns and whatever you like on the front. I can't fault Somfy motors. They are brilliant, well connected as well. They can have their own hub, work very well though Google home, Samsung smart things, through the tahoma or connexion apps, but home assistant is the best for the totally customized automations.
Oooh, nice automations! The one drawback I see with Somfy is that they require internet access/a cloud account to work. I'd rather all my devices worked 100% locally. Other than that, they do look like an awesome product!
You may want to add an automation that open the blinds when an emergency is triggered.
This could be good for an alarm event if you use Home Assistant as a DIY alam system.
Oh, that's a great suggestion! What kind of emergencies does your smart home respond too? I'd love to incorporate some of this into my smart home
@@HomeAutomationGuy If you have an o2/temp sensor, you can trigger to open all the lights, pull up the blinds and sound an alarm if it detects unusual high reading. you can also do this when a loud bang is detected in the middle of the night or you push a panic button.
@@jvmauricio107 I've done something like that - high temperature turns fan off and makes a warning. I've underestimated summer temperatures a bit, so I was very close to a false positive once.
Looking forward to your thoughts on bed sensors. Looks like nothing is available off-the-shelf from my research so maybe you'll be showing off your soldering skills? Also interested in your experiences on separate sensors for each side of a double bed. (Automations in general are much harder with multiple people in the house!)
I'll show you an option with no soldering skills, just some WAGO terminal blocks and an ESP32. I have two sensors, one on either side of the bed. It's not super reliable, so I'm testing another iteration that DOES unfortunately require some soldering.
Battery powered blind motors do avoid any wiring but if they have fixed internal batteries, then recharging them with a long cable draped across the room, perhaps for hours, is far from convenient (especially if you have a house full of them and they have a short battery life) and might even pose a trip hazard. (I speak from experience of tripping!).
However, if the blind motor battery is removable, it is a simple and quick process to swap it for a spare fully charged battery. The Ikea blinds work this way and a spare battery for them is not expensive. Lutron wireless blinds use dry batteries (D-cells) which can last up to 2 years, so no recharging needed at all.
Having mains wiring professionally installed for blind motor power is probably the best solution although it might be prohibitively expensive, but there is an alternative which is to use low voltage DC powered blind motors and then it is a safe DIY project to install cables to a nearby plug-in power supply.
Another blinds automation is to close to blinds to block out the sun. We live in the southern US and the sun can be particularly strong. Not only is it blinding when you are sitting at the dining room table, it also fades the furniture and woodwork. We have 12 Lurton roller shades installed. I use Eve motion/luminance sensors to detect when the sun is out (light level reaches 6000 lux). Less then that is a cloudy day and the shades can stay open. I have Raspberry Pi computers programmed to track the sun azimuth and when the sun is at an azimuth that is no longer on the window, the shades open. Battery life on the Lutron shades is well over the two years Lutron claims and they are easy to change.
Thanks for the video and for sharing your experience with different blind options.
I have the zemismart chain controller and it doesn't show the battery level in Z2M , does the tube one show the battery level?
Sadly it does not show the battery level Z2M. That's something I hope they incorporate soon, as I know the data is available in the native app.
Thanks.
Awesome video I'm looking at getting the exact motors. I have a bay window with the 2 side windows at about 50 degrees to the large centre window meaning I get horrible gaps between each blind (these windows also have openers on them making it worse). I want to tackle this before I take the plunge. Where did you get them from, the lead time on amazon is weeks?
I bought my Zemismarts directly from the Zemismart website. It took about a week or two for delivery, but they were cheaper than sourcing them locally.
For open time trigger have you thought of random minute 00 to 15 might be useful if away
I have been trying to motorize my vertical panels for years and I have yet to locate a motor product for this project. All my vertical panels are controlled by a plastic rod that you turn to open and close and slide from side to side, to completely move the panels to one side. No luck at all. Still looking! Any suggestions. The project needs to be able to twist and move without looking like a monster box on the panels
afternoon nap is the most important part of the life of a man - I fully agree as I practice it for last... 25 years ;)
Great vid.
I would love to use home assistant but I've no idea what gear I need or how to setup the raspberry pi thing. How about doing a vid on what you need where to get and how to build.... please😊
I actually did one of those the other month. Check out my channel to watch it ☺️
Great video, and very useful. You skipped over whether you had the usual painful experience of putting up the blind holders in the right spot. Or could you repurpose the existing ones?
It wasn't that difficult. I just drilled new holes and used a spirit level to make sure they were level
All my blinds are Roman (I think they are more homely then roller blinds) so I’m “stuck” with the Aqara E1s and similar I think. Unsure if you can get chainless roman motors? The E1s are not the prettiest but they work well and I get 2 months out of each charge.
My automations are very simple in comparison, and I’m looking forward to making them “smarter”, cheers!
Well, I just learned what a "Roman Blind" is! I never knew what they were called before!
The E1 seems quite reliable so far, but yes - it's not winning any interior design awards any time soon.
Is there a link to the zemismart tubular motor?
i wonder if the switchbot solar panels would work on these to charge them
I'm gald you tested this specific motor. I'm strugging to find a motor that is Zwave, zigbee (or even wifi) for a 32mm tube as the ones I have. It seems to be a relatively new model... thier old zigbee motors had like a RF-Zigbee converter or something like that, and I was not convinced. I would love to be wired. When I made the house 4 years ago I left small boxes on top of the curtains to connect them and another box on the side to add manual controls :)
Do you get the battery level exposed on Home Assistant? I could add a smart relay/charger on the box to recharg then when battery is getting low.
By the way, I'm using aqara E1 on a few. It works pretty nice, but I don't recommend it for large (any) or medium (heavier blackout) curtains. It strugles or fails to raise them. Maybe its because of small 32mm tube I have, which requires much more torque. For medium size (1.60 x 130) sun screen work fine on my case.
Sadly the battery level is not exposed on Home Assistant. I'm hoping that someone smarter than me will incorporate this data into a future update, as I know it's available from the native app.
Alan - did you look at the roller/Roman blinds out there pre fitted with somfy motors? If so, why did you decide against?
I did not look at them as I wasn't aware of them. To be honest, I didn't know what a "Roman blind" was until just now 🤣
I see that Somfy requires an internet connection and Cloud access for them to work, which is why they probably didn't come across my radar. They do look nice though!
Can you add a variable that addresses Sky conditions? Clear sky, shades close later because it is brighter longer, cloudy days close Evan earlier due to a lower light level. The motion sensor may have a lux value option that could take care of light levels.
You definitely can. You can also get a LUX meter outside and use the values from that. My smart weather station has a lux reading that I can use for this if I wanted to.
Has anyone found good blinds that work well with the Zemismart electric rollers?
Have you thought of a small solar panel attached to window to charge?
Not sure if enough light in UK for this to be viable option for me. Just leave up position down 2" to hide it.
I have the zemismart just ordering the blind.
I've been thinking of getting the solar attachment actually. Even here in the UK it should hopefully be light enough to trickle charge them. Maybe your comment will kick me into gear to actually looking into it further 🤣 Thanks for sharing!
@Home Automation Guy Anytime your lighting video inspired me when released. Have a bunch of philips hue now.
What zemismart motor are you using? Seems to be exactly what I need with all of my blinds still up, but in need of some serious love to keep them from meeting the garbage truck.
The tubular motor that they sell for a 32mm blind tube.
@@HomeAutomationGuy thanks! Found another one later for me with a 17mm motor. Looking forward to when it comes home :)
Hi I bought Zemismart Tuya motor witch USB dongle WIFI to RF but I don't know how integrate dongle in Home Assistant. I have also motor witch USB dongle ZigBee - to RF working ok in home assistant( ZigBee to MQTT an program North Read for integration). Can you describe little bit more how you make integration in Home assistant or any idea how can integrate my USB dongle WIFI to RF in home assistant
I was considering getting one of the zemismart tubes but I didn't have a blind yet either and decided to save time and effort.
Considered the smartwings but went with the ikea one as it was cheaper.
I've only used it with the remote so far and other than the slight delay and having to use their repeater to pair the remote I've had no issues.
The biggest problem I see with the ikea blind is that trying to add a solar panel to it will take a serious mod.
The battery is supposed to last a very long time but charging is also super slow.
I don't have any hub right now or a zigbee USB stick for HA nor a dedicated machine for it.
I need to replace my router and AP as well so I'm considering building a router and running ha on it as well or on a separate cheaper mini pc / an existing pc.
Honeycomb blinds that I control via RF.
Ikea did a good job with their blinds. Mine are working absolutely reliable with zha. The battery has to be charged every 4 to 6 months. For charging, you can remove them - no problem. Sorry, but I think, this would have been the better choice.
One thing not mentioned is how you can use it with a metal bead chain that has a connector in the middle to join the two ends. The blind has a sealed cog wheel which the connector cannot pass through. The smart blind device has a cog that the connector also cannot pass through. The length of the chain between both cogs is not enough to fully open and close the blinds and it's already at the lowest part of the window recess. How do you solve that?
I bought a chain that didn't have a connector from Amazon. You can buy them in many different lengths and replace the original chain with it
Ricky Leon
0 seconds ago
very cool i have many qustion i have smart switch that turn on the lights when i set timers , can i use a smart motion sensor to set it to turn on the lights when i walk into a barth room or kitchen please give the best guild
I have a doubt based on what I saw in your video. if I and my wife are users in home assitant. how to create the two of us a resident like you showed in your video. so that resident can be used as conditions to trigger automation.
Check out a blog I wrote about it on my homeautomationguy.io website. It shows you how to configure a "residents" entity that you can use for this
How did you manage to get it paired with Z2M? Did you have to use the included dongle or coud you use your own directly into Z2M? I don´t get how to set the device into pairing mode.
I have it paired to Z2M using a USB Zigbee dongle. Check out some of my other videos for more information on this.
The instructions say how to get it into pairing mode. I think you press either the up or down button 4 times and hold it on the 5th, but I can't remember the exact sequence
@@HomeAutomationGuy so you actually used the remote to be able to pair it with Z2M? Will try right away :)
I've been planning to get smart blinds, but I don't have Home Assistant. My smart is essentially Hue bulbs... Is HA required for automated smart blinds/ voice controlled blinds?
Nope. You can use the Zemismart or Aqara Hubs and apps instead if you prefer
@@HomeAutomationGuy Thanks. As a Brit trying to start a smart home, I wondered if you had any thoughts (or could maybe blog / video on it), how to get hold of a lot of these products in the UK? I bought some Flic buttons and got stung with a £40 customs fee. Now I'm worried about massive surprise fees on anything bought from overseas, like the Zemismart rollers you're using.
Are the Zemismart equipment compatible with ZHA?
Yes they are
@@HomeAutomationGuy oh so cool! My Aqara roller shade driver e1 works but only as a number entity not a cover so at some point I might give them a try! What’s the best website to get them off if I live in the Uk?
@@michaelthompson657 Vesternet are usually where I try to buy from first, otherwise Amazon if I'm in a pinch.
@@HomeAutomationGuy cool thanks, no problem. I’ll have a look 👍🏻
Does your blind remember the state of blind opening and closing position? If your blind open like 50% for example does it keep track of it. You might want trigger blind to open 20% more
Yes, I can tell my blind to open to 20% or similar via my automations. Or I can set the limits differently if I always want them to be a little bit open or closed.
Have you encountered the issue where the Aqara roller blinds doesn't update its position unless the stop command is sent in Home Assistant?
If you mean the E1, I’ve been using four for a couple of months with no problems.
@@lawrencemanning That's interesting. Does it automatically update its position after you select UP or DOWN and it moves to 0 or 100?
The issue I'm having is one similar to Home Sight (he's a youtuber too) encountered on his channel and he had to use NodeRed to call a get command to retrieve its position after a predetermined amount of seconds it takes to fully open or close the blinds.
I just tested my Aqara E1 and I definitely have this same issue. When I press the DOWN button, HA immediately updates to say it's fully down. If I manually stop it at 20%, it then updates HA to show its correct position.
To be honest, I'd never noticed it before as I either tell it to go fully open or closed, or directly to a percentage and don't watch the status.
What are the brand of blinds you have in your home office we see in the first clip with the side bars to block light?
Bloc Blinds. They're a UK manufacturer I think
@@HomeAutomationGuy what ones specifically. I'm guessing a roller type. We have the push and pull version but can't see how you could automate them.
@@HomeAutomationGuy or are they the block blind motorised ones. So not using third party.
@@HomeAutomationGuy do they also have the issue mine have that you can't really open the window with them down as they get sucked out their sidings. Pain in the summer when you need them most it's a compromise between airflow or black out.
Great vids by the way and thanks for the reply.
@@russellwelch4193 Yes, they do. But I have a window contact sensor on my window, and a small IF statement on my Home Assistant automation that only lowers the blind to 90% if the window is open, or 100% if the window is closed.
What brand blind are you using?
I don't know sorry. They came with the house
@@HomeAutomationGuy no worries. I was just curious ben looking for some decent but not crazy expensive. I think I found some. have a good day
You made passing mention of opening the blinds manually. When you do that, how does the blind know where it is from either the top or bottom?
Also, since you are using wi-fi etc, are you using VLANs?
I experimented with one IKEA smart roller blind. It’s been just ‘ok’ on reliability but to be fair I didn’t buy the IKEA Tradfri hub - I hooked it up to SmartThings instead.
I had to trim to fit the window. Not that difficult but your tools should be of a high standard for good results.
They’re also too loud for my liking. I believe the Lutron shades are amongst the quietest but too pricey.
Other brands: Keen to try Eve Motionblinds but I can’t seem to find a retailer in the UK that has the range. They seem to cost more than IKEA, less than Lutron and are Matter (I’m more of an Apple home - keeping it simple).
Any tips for choosing the blockout side strips like the ones in your office would be greatly appreciated. My IKEA blind has a gap of over an inch each side.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! I use Bloc Blinds in my office, which have the channels down the side to make it totally dark.
w.r.t. IKEA: don't forget that they offer 365days money back guarantee for most items (and at least a few weeks otherwise)
I might give them a try in a few months when we're moving to our own house
Given a single open and close per day, how many days do you estimate the battery will last on a full charge?
Depends a lot on the weight of the blind, the length of the run, the luck of the battery you get. It's a crapshoot - go hardwired if you can! I wish I didn't go with battery blinds 😢
@@HomeAutomationGuy how long do you get? Just as a point of reference
@@mil3761 between 3 and 12 weeks per blind, depending on the window
Why not retrofit them with solar panels? The option is out there.
Yeah thats what I was thinking, I've not had to charge mine since I got them a year or so ago.
biggest problem with most of this stuff is running power to it. batteries suck. wonder if there is a solar solution.
8:08
wait until this guy finds out about emf health threats
Reputable source?
@@lawrencemanning the current health knowledge around emf is based on the conclusion that non ionizing radiation is harmful, which is false. The russian government knew this back in the day and even used non ionizing radiation in warefare and banned the use of cell phones for children. so really there is no source that it is safe, our body's use native emfs to know when it is time to do certain things in the body, over exposure to non native emfs cause many things to happen in the body that are uncalled for such as calcium channels opening and other things that lead to cellular structure failure. there are many studies on this proving but nobody wants to accept it because it means throwing away all this technology they can't live without and there's a lot of money involved in tech so obviously it's not mainstream or talked about
🌝
Unfortunately, after some time, these roller blind motors will start acting up.
Oh? In what way?
those blinds are blocking no sun lmao
Are you going to get electrically actuated windows? 😂
😯 Not sure the budget will stretch for that
@@HomeAutomationGuy fair enough. They are expensive
I gotta use these for bed
Jesus died on the cross for our sins and arose 3 days later and grants eternal life to people who believe in him
People are either too rich or too lazy damn
How do you know it’s not both?
Written with tongue firmly in cheek. ;)
Basically a partially sponsored video
True. I got the equipment for free after researching what I wanted and asking for it. But they didn't pay me any money to give any specific messages or talking points, all the opinions are my own