I’m nearly done purchasing a condo and would like to see if the following product exists:
Smart blinds, either roller, or adjustable vanes that:
If a roller, has dual roller (one with very little light filtering, one with a lot), if a vane, can fully open, through fully close.
The part facing the street needs to be white, (I am flexible on the part facing inward, but maybe grey)
I’d strongly prefer if I could have the shade/blinds start from the bottom. One, there is power there, two due to the setup of the condo if you were to partially use shades most likely you’d want to block the bottom 1/3rd of the view from the street, and leave the top 2/3rd open. If this is an option, then it could likely not need to be a dual roller setup.
If it can’t open from the bottom, then perhaps battery or solar powered?
(I’ve moved this to projects so you can get individualized recommendations based on your own requirements, since they are so specific. )
You should be able to do this with Lutron QS shades, Bali Springs Window Fashions, or Graber shades from Zebra Blinds. The QS option would be quite expensive, though, significantly more than zebra blinds I believe. And I don’t know how the Bali line is priced.
Lutron uses its own proprietary communications protocol, so you would also need to get their smart bridge pro device for integration. Zebra blind users Z wave and integrates directly to the smartthings hub. Bali has an official integration with SmartThings, but I don’t know of anyone who’s using it, so I haven’t heard anything about it one way or the other beyond the official announcement
@ZebraBlinds has a staff member who is quite active in this forum and should be able to answer any questions you have about their products. For Lutron or Bali, you would need to get in touch with their support.
There are also some DIY options which would save you some money but are quite a bit more effort to set up. For a double shade you would need to get a double mount and mount one in front of the other. You can see what some other community members have done by looking on the quick browse lists in the community – created wiki, looking down near the bottom of that page for the project report section, and choosing the “window coverings” list.
Anything which can work with smart things can work with echo, although it would generally be seen by Echo as a dimmer switch, so you would say things like “set to 50%” to open it halfway.
To be honest, I’m not sure about what you mean by “start from the bottom.” From the description, it appears that you mean a top down roller. These will still have the motor device at the top of the window, it’s just that the top part of the glass will be cleared while the bottom will remain blocked by the shade/blind.
I don’t know what’s available for these models, you’d just have to look into the specifics.
These are usually called “top down“ shades. There are even “top down, bottom up“ shades as well, which can leave only the center part of the window covered. They became popular in the office buildings with motorized shades about 30 years ago, when designers wanted to let in more light without creating distractions for meetings in the space.
Lutron makes them in their QS line, but most of the more expensive brands have them.
Lutron tensioned shades allow for flexible installation at any angle between -135º and 135º with consistent aesthetic results. Shade can close from top to bottom, or from the bottom up
Here’s a typical designers’ short video:
And here’s a hunter Douglas model which can be manual or motorized:
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