I so wish I had purchased smart ones for the 6 south-facing windows in my house… but alas, when we renovated a year ago I had not yet discovered this smart house wormhole, so we bought all dumb shades. You’re lucky you didn’t have any sunk cost!
We have dumb shades with an R-Factor around 4 as well, but it’s too much of a pain to go around to each window on 2 floors every time we leave/arrive. Not automating my shades is my biggest smart house regret.
And, if I had it to do over again, Serena shades would be my solution of choice.
ubisys offers ZigBee controllers which connect your motorized blinds. They support lift, lift and tilt or tilt only operation. Currently available for 230V~ mains. Both flush-mounted and DIN rail mounted versions are available since more than two years.
I’m also looking at the Serena products for my soon-to-be-built house, and am probably going with the same ones as you. My local Lowes will measure my eleven windows and order them and install them for what I consider a reasonable price.
One question–have you found a good solution for large sliding glass doors? When I had the battery powered Hunter Douglas blinds installed in my current house five years ago (pre-automation) there were no powered options for the verticals I installed on the slider. I would like a “close and tilt” option (but I could just live with a tilt if necessary).
Pella makes battery-powered blinds that are integrated between the panes of glass of their sliding (and french) doors. I don’t know if they have a HA interface, but it’s likely something could be hacked if they don’t.
Pella also announced integrated z-wave sensors in their doors and windows.
It turns out Hunter Douglas does have an automated solution. Needs a $100 hub for an automated out-of-house connection. There are two options for sliding glass doors, both of which look pretty sharp. I placed an order today to do my entire house (to be hopefully completed in February). It probably won’t integrate with SmartThings just yet, but I’m hopeful since I believe it uses the same motorized/wireless signal as the Somfy.
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
28
Okay I’m missing something here, new to automated blinds and try to get upto speed. I see many folks have installed motorized blinds and then remote/zwave enabled them.
As I understand there are 2 components to remote blinds:
Motorized blinds - these are blinds connected to a motor which is controlled by a relay
Remote control - these could be ZWave or just a remote or some custom controller which controls the relays for the blind motors
Did I get that right?
If so then I’m thinking I would like to use one of these 2 zwave blinds motors relay controllers to control my blinds. In this case what options does one have for motorized blinds which can be controlled by these controllers.
That does have potential. I can’t find any more info, but by passing one of their stretch goals, it seems like there may be additional options for connecting it to other systems:
We are overwhelmed by the support and thanks to all backers MOVE will now get a “control by wire” function. With this function MOVE will be even more versatile and open for integration to different home automation systems or other control devices.
I’m not seeing the potential. It’s a Bluetooth activated straight line motor actuator. The founders seem totally clueless about most automatic blind issues, including, for example, blinds that require pulling at an angle, what you do if there’s a power outage when the blinds are partway open, any sense of safety issues, any notion of API design or development… The list goes on.
These are some guys who figured out they could push a button and have a gear turn. Then they decided they’d make the button a Bluetooth button.
I don’t even see any indication that they know they have to get FCC approval.
Looks like a dorm room project. I don’t expect this to ever come to market. And if it does it won’t work the way they’ve described in their stretch goals, certainly not at that price point.
Reminds me of that Best Buy commercial that’s running right now of the high school guy who walks into Best Buy and says he wants a laptop for school and he’s also going to launch a tech start up.
I am in the same boat @RBoy. Everything I have looked at is 12 or 24 volt DC though. Are these AC controllers?
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
33
Don’t remember, I’m still trying to figure it out. Are you saying most blind motors are DC? Also where can I find a system with just the blinds/motors which I can hook up to a Zwave relay?
I am leaning toward getting blinds through HomeDepot with Somfy motors and this power panel. I am not totally clear on where the z-wave controller ties into that. I just sent them an email asking.
Yeah, @smart my home depot is the same. I actually had to explain to them what the products were and how to configure it. They were still nice and as helpful as they could be, but told me I was the first one to ever ask for automated blind of any kind.
Harmony Home hubs now have integration with Serena Shades. Since ST can integrate with Harmony, it should be possible to integrate Serena into ST now.
Only bummer is, you’re talking about 3 hubs and 3 cloud-to-cloud systems. ST>Cloud>Harmony>Cloud>Lutron. That might be too much to deal with on its own, but for users who already have Harmony in their system for AV control, this could be a path to automated blinds.
This is a late reply but we just launched a new campaign (http://igg.me/at/axis-gear) directed towards shades, curtains or any blind that has a cord loop. In terms of your comments, we are heavily focused with integrating SmartHome platforms, with our primary integrations specific to SmartThings, Logitech Harmony and NEST (via WEAVE). With NEST introducing the WEAVE program, it makes it possible for those with Zigbee HA1.2 to have a direct integration rather than through wifi only.
We also looked at the industry and understand the high cost to motorize your blinds or shades (upwards of $400 per window). Being an affordable retrofit device opens the market to not only new window blind purchases, but also existing blinds.
I think your feedback on our project would be very beneficial for future features. We are already in pre-production and have been getting huge interest on the commercial side (specifically integrating with Business Automation Systems in office buildings who are focused on LEED and employee comfort).
This product caught my eyes, and if it was ready I would have bought one today… as we are trying to figure out how to handle second floor height (Cathedral ceiling) windows. Unfortunately, a year turnaround though probably a reasonable time line, hits a pain point for me.
Motorizing those window coverings will be epic. We can keep in touch closer to shipping time if you’re interested in seeing where things go. Also, if Z-Wave is your thing, we’re announcing Z-Wave support later tonight as well as a campaign extension.