Motionblinds joins Works with Home Assistant

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We’re excited to announce the latest partner to join the Works with Home Assistant program is Motionblinds! And if you’re wondering what type of products they provide, the clue really is in the name!

Motionblinds is the first Works with Home Assistant partner to certify smart window blinds. This brings us closer to a future where you can build a smart home exclusively with certified devices that give the best possible experience with Home Assistant.  Smart blinds integrated with Home Assistant unlock powerful automations, such as blinds opening when you get home, or closing sun-facing blinds on warmer days to keep your home cool.

Shades of innovation

Motionblinds is a brand from Coulisse, a company from the Netherlands, that has been making window coverings for the past 30 years. Motionblinds are available worldwide and are known for their beautiful, customizable designs, coupled with smart technology. They not only provide all-in-one smart blinds, but also upgrade kits for your existing roller blinds, which is great for cutting down on waste.

A window to the future

Motionblinds are definitely a leader in the smart blinds space and have partnered with Eve Systems, a leading provider of smart home devices, headquartered in Germany and part of ABB. This partnership brings Matter-over-Thread to their motors. Together, we have tested and certified these Matter-certified Eve Motionblinds. It’s easy to tell which are part of Works with Home Assistant, as they’ll include the “powered by Eve” badge.

Motionblinds that use Bluetooth and 433MHz technology will also be getting the ‘Works With Home Assistant’ treatment, as we’re certifying motors that connect via the Motionblinds Matter Bridge (CM-55). This provides an excellent local way to connect this additional range of products to Home Assistant, allowing many more Motionblinds motors to give the best experience with Home Assistant. Check out our Motionblinds integrations page for a full list of the different motors that are certified. Be aware that standalone, Bluetooth-integrated blinds are not currently certified under the ‘Works With’ program.

Motionblinds Matter Bridge (CM-55)

Home Assistant was recently Matter certified, and with these blinds certified to work with Home Assistant, end-to-end these devices are going to give a seamless experience. Every Works with Home Assistant product is tested by our team, works locally, and the brand promises to provide great long-term support.

Which devices have been certified?

All these devices connect directly to Home Assistant via Matter, provided you pick the “powered by Eve” option, or combine with the Matter bridge. We’re big fans of open standards like Matter, because they bring great benefits when it comes to local control, privacy, and long-term support.

Closing thoughts 🪟

A big thanks to both Coulisse and Eve for putting their time and effort into bringing Motionblinds to the Works with Home Assistant program. This is really plugging a blind spot in our Works with program by covering new ground and opening up some exciting options for our community 😃.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2025/03/27/motionblinds-joins-wwha
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As one of the engineers that does the development for Motionblinds I am really excited to finally have this. It all started because @starkillerOG made the first integration for us so our Motionblinds motors could work with Home Assistant.

And now with our new bridge CM-55 and our complete Eve Motionblinds portfolio we are able to provide a perfect integration into Home Assistant.

If anyone has questions about our products or about the integrations just send me a message.

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I’m a long time fan of Motion Blinds products and have many of your smart blinds integrated for years now. I’m happy to hear that you put in the effort to maintain high quality integrations.

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sound great. One question is there the bridge required for bluetooth setup or only for 433MHz and Matter?

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I would say my problem is a general Matter one, but my Motionblinds are my first Matter devices.

Connecting my Motionblinds was an absolute nightmare because my WiFi has integrated 2.4 & 5 GHz, you can’t choose which your phone is connected to. It took me days of frustration to set up my blinds before I found that the only solution was to carry the blind to a far corner of my home, where 5 GHz doesn’t reach. It took a lot of research to find that the 5 GHz was the problem.

I am an experienced smart home builder but the frustration was so much that I was close to returning the blinds.

I think there needs to be some way to deal with this problem, perhaps it needs to come from Home Assistant, because pairing these blinds nearly broke me.

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I’m curious about the new Bridge and what features are supported. Can I see the current open % on RF blinds when using the Bridge? Or is the RF communication one-way (bridge to blind)?

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The new but also the ‘old’ bridges are bi-directional. So you can see all kind of features.

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Hopefully This explains it a bit.
We have Eve Motionblinds that connect through Matter over Thread and work directly with a Border Router like a Homepod Mini, Google Nest Hub V2, or use the Home Assistant ZBT-1.

We have the new bridge CM-55 that has Matter over Wi-Fi, and the bridge talks 433mhz bi-directional to the blinds.

You can also connect Bluetooth + 433mhz with Home assistant through Bluetooth integration but this is not certified by HA and is not that great as the Matter integrations. Or the local integration for the older bridges CMD-01 and CM-20.

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I wonder if we will be seeing any new abilities for covers in light of this. I was wanting to go with Lutron roller shades just because they are silent. But since they are comically expensive, I went with Smartwings. The Smartwings shades work great, but they scare the shit out of me when they activate. It wouldn’t be fiscally responsible to replace my shades currently, but I wonder how silent these Motionblinds are.

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Hi, you say wifi was the source of your problem with Matter. Matter can be used with wifi, but Eve Motion blinds use Thread, which does not use wifi (The frequency thread uses can interfere with wifi, but still I don’t think that was your problem). Your most likely problem was that you were too far away from a Thread border router. What border routers do you have?

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Sound is always a topic when it comes to motorized window coverings. And yes lutron is known for being ‘quiet’. And because this is always a topic we have made the option to reduce the speed on some motors. Standard these motors are on 20 rpm, but if you want to have a ‘quiet’ motor you can also put it on 10, 16 rpm. My personal preference is 16 rpm. Still quite quick but also a bit quieter. Have a look at this video from Simon Says Home Assistant. He has tested our blinds and gives his own oppinion also about sound.

https://youtu.be/Q87xlenBJrs?si=xi6pYI104eSqvNR7

We are actually working on some stuff to get our motors to be really silent. But this will take some time.

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As @Edwin_D also mentions strange that this has happened. I have not seen or heard any issue’s related to 2.4/5Ghz with Eve Motionblinds. But there are some strange behaviours with Matter when things aren’t on the same network. Not sure if that could be the case. Since matter is using Multicast for transportation it sometimes causes strange things to happen. Things like switches can really cause problems. And also being far from a Border Router or a Thread router is something that can make your day a lot harder.

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Yes. Matter relies heavily on IPv6 and mDNS. mDNS can be tricky across multiple networks. Also IPv6 needs to be configured properly.

But since it is your first Matter/Thread device, it is most likely the Thread coverage in your home is not optimal yet, or Thread configuration was not fully set up right yet. My first Thread/Matter device (Nuki) also took some time to properly set up. Luckily things are getting better quickly, as more devices support Thread and help form a stable mesh. Also the technology is evolving quickly.

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Can the Matter Bridge CM55 already be ordered from a webshop in the Netherlands?

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The problem is, when pairing a Thread device, your phone needs to be on 2.4 GHz. If you are on 5 GHz then the Thread device will not be found.

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Perhaps the issue is more linked to my router, apparently Google WiFi doesn’t handle multicast traffic well between 5 GHz and wired devices, which affects Matter and Thread device pairing.

I shouldn’t have to work out such issues myself tbh

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I don’t own any matter devices so forgive me if I dont understand but isnt the point of matter that it communicates via wifi? So why do I need yet another bridge? What is it even bridging then? Shouldnt connectivity be possible by running a piece of software on the same device as HA?

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I don’t own any matter devices so forgive me if I dont understand but isnt the point of matter that it communicates via wifi?

Not quite. Matter is just the “language” the devices speak. Matter can be used over different communication ways:

  • WiFi (you are correct in that domain, no additional hardware required)
  • LAN (also no additional hardware required)
  • Thread (a relatively new mesh network, successor of ZigBee).

The Motionblinds use Thread, for which you need an additional Router (Thread Border Router, TBR)

So why do I need yet another bridge?

You just need a bridge for devices that don’t “speak” matter, e.g., ZigBee or 433MHz. The bridge translates the proprietary signals into Matter language (and vice versa). This is the case for older models ("Motionblinds that use Bluetooth and 433MHz technology ").

If you ask me, Matter bridges are not that important for HA users, as we have pretty good interfaces that directly use other protocols like ZigBee or Bluetooth. However, Matter bridges are quite important for users of more closed smart home solutions.

Shouldnt connectivity be possible by running a piece of software on the same device as HA?

Yes, this is generally the case. You can either use your HA server as a TBR (with a ZBT-1) or an existing one (at the moment mostly from Google, Amazon, or Apple). WiFi devices of course don’t require a TBR.

See here:

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Still struggeling to buy the right parts.
I dont have any matter device or Bluetooth Gateway (despite some Shellies) in my home.

@jerry_bboy
I want to buy a new “Upgrade kit” and control it natively via HA.
Is the “old” Wifi Bridge (CMD-01) the right choice for this?
Is the USB-Port of this Bridge only for Power Supply?

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Thanks for the explanation!