Hello! I’m looking to automate 5 windows 36"x44" on the south side of my house. Information is hard to find. I’m looking at Bali shades from the Costco website, and Graber blinds from ZebraBlinds. I haven’t been able to successfully navigate through the Bali website to get a price. ZebraBlinds is showing about $350 per window plus a z wave rts bridge. (It seems like they should integrate z wave into their motors.) I like that the Bali shades have z wave built into the motor, but they don’t have motorized blinds. I will figure all this out as I learn more. Right now, I have three questions.
Can I put a 12v dc transformer in a junction box and run wire through the wall and underneath the window casing?
Will I be able to automate these 5 windows for less than $2k?
First, which blinds are you looking at. ZebraBlinds absolutely has a Graber (Springs/Bali/Somfy) blind that is ZWave.
Second you should expect between $200-500 per unit depending on options for fully custom blinds like on ZebraBlinds or 100-300 for semi custom like Ikea.
Yes, Bali/Somfy/Graeber have a power option available you can ask zebra about it. You beed to run at least 2 conductor wire toneach window you want to use that option.
Inuse rechargeable lipos on mine (an option if youborder custom form someone like Zebra and they last appropriately 6 months being opened / closed every day
Theres a ZebraBlinds rep Neal, who frequents the forums, Id suggest you look him up. @ZebraBlinds Neal?
So you’ve got the Graber & Co bit wrong. They run on z-wave directly (they do have a non z-wave version as well). The Z-wave versions pair directly to SmartThings or any other z-wave hub and has full control.
The prices after discounts would be shown once you add an item to your cart. You’re looking at around $300 - 400 per shade depending on the fabric and options. If you are looking to hardwire, there is a power supply available for it, however, it’s meant to power up to 10 motors.
I installed 6 shades last year (Bali/Costco and Bali/Blinds.com). As I recall, mine were about $600/window. Keep in mind that the size (several of mine were towards the largest they could make with a motor), controller/power and fabric all play into the price.
I did this in two phases, and thought that blinds.com had more option selections so tried it for the second phase. In the end, the Costco site is hard to deal with, but ensures that you don’t order something they can’t make. The Blinds.com site works better, but they allow you to order things they can’t make, and then a rep tries to help you fix it. In the end, both were competitive (and both had “deals”) and had similar products, but Costco delivered faster. I did not try Zebra blinds.
As indicated in the other comments, Bali has Z wave built in, and it works with ST. Although I was forced to buy the default transformer, I sourced a separate high efficiency 12 VDC power supply (much cheaper than the ones sold with the blinds) and a separate USB connector that I used for each set of two blinds. These were plug in power supplies and I ran the 12 VDC outside the wall, until I have a better solution. There are several options for central power supplies that may cost as much as the blinds…
While the codes are typically less stringent for low voltage wiring, if you do run it in the wall, I think you need to use plenum rated cable. Code requirements will vary from place to place though, so I’d check ahead of time. Also make sure you size the wire properly.
This is all very helpful! (And, a lot of information.) I’m browsing the links you posted. I didn’t know that only the tilt of horizontal blinds could be motorized. There are so many options. I’m looking for horizontal blinds only. The curtains will not be motorized. I will continue reading the websites until I have a better idea about what I want.
After viewing all the websites, it looks like zebrablinds.com is going to be the best place for my purchase.
@ZebraBlinds Neil, when I’m done painting, replacing the casing, and putting in 12v wire, I will reach out to you for assistance in customizing my order.
Where at the top of the window should the wire come out?
@mvevitsis zebrablinds.com–smart homes–motorized blinds shows “Integrate with Smart Home systems such as SmartThings”. It looks like they have no special category in their menu system.
Yeah, if you are going with Horizontal Blinds, then you need the zrtsi bridge since atleast the ones we offer would be using Somfy RTS motors.
Horizontal blinds with motorization isn’t a high volume product so there really hasn’t been much effort in the window industry to focus on it too much.
I removed the casing, wall plates, and fixtures today in preparation for painting. Two of the five windows are definitely failing, so I need to replace them before measuring for blinds. Assuming the windows have flanges, the cedar siding on the outside is covering them, so the siding needs to come down. I was planning that painting and window treatments would be my March project, but now it looks like it’s going to be my summer 2021 project.
I will report back to this thread when I order my blinds.