First of, I hope I’m in the right spot, I’m totally new to Home Assistant. So sorry if I’m not in the right spot. Anyways, I just recently moved in a new apartment. In my room there are some (exterior) slat blinds, that I can close from the inside with a rod (like an awning on a camper).
I think it would be great to have an automation that closes and opens the blinds depending on the our of the day. And I think that it’s something I would be able to do with home assistant and some hardware.
Here’s where I’m stuck, I would like some guidance on what I should buy, as for the board, motor, speed controller, power supply, etc. I think I would a need a motor with a bunch of torque so it doesn’t take 10 years to open the blinds but either way I’m all ears for any advice on what to get.
By the way, I also have a 3d printer so I can pretty easily print some casing for this whole thing but I don’t want it to take too much space. Thanks in advance to any helper!
Looks like I might find something interesting in that, but those are inside shutters so I guess I’m gonna have to put my hands in the dirt and find the right way for me. Anyways, thanks for the help, it’s a great starting point.
To help us help you, detail and specific needs in questions tend to get better answers.
There’s lots of types of blinds which need different types of control input (e.g. slats turn a rod, rollers turn a drum), lots of power options (battery, 220V, 110V, etc), lots of sizes.
A global favorite of automators is IKEA kit as the same thing is sold globally (e.g. search for IKEA LACK tables on Printables to find everything from 3D printer enclosures to 19" racks). Most linked projects are a motor + controller + ESP32 + ESPhome.
IKEA produce Zigbee roller blinds - Fyrtur, and there are some designs for add-on motors for “standard” manual FRIDANS blinds. There’s also a load of cheap-ish automated blind manufacturers (just avoid Tuya - their protocol has problems).
Rather than point at a specific design, I’m going to suggest a couple of YouTube creators who have reviewed blinds, and made their own (search is your friend - use it!):
So as for the details; the blinds I have are exterior slats with a rod that goes on from out to inside and can change the angle of the slats or completely roll them up/down, but it’s like a middle point, if the slats are at the top, you can simply turn the rod it will first roll them down all the way, then change the angle, and vice versa when you want to roll them back up. So the general solution on the market doesn’t really suit my need. It’s a common slat system in Switzerland, as I’ve seen, not so much in the other countries.
As for the power, I was thinking plugging the whole thing to an outlet (220V) ? Or something around those lines, I just want it to be hooked up to an outlet, but this ofc implies a “converter” for the current to be at the right “intensity” for the motor.
I was thinking a combo of motor + controller + ESP32 + ESPhome, but also wanted to make sure that was something suitable for my use, and since most people tend to recommend this I guess I will go with that and find out.
The blinds are already installed and they are stuck in the outside insulation if you prefer, I could probably get some blueprints to show you if you don’t see what I mean. But this means I can’t change them for roller blinds or stuff like that.
And thanks for the youtubers suggestions I will check them out.
They are exterior blinds not interior blinds so sadly it doesn’t work for my use case, but thanks for the suggestion!
EDIT: After reviewing the product, it might work but I’m not sure if the rod is the right size for this device, I would have to look more into it. But it’s also pretty bulky, and I don’t really like that.
It comes with a tool to check what size adapter is needed for the rod you have installed, only way to know if it will work for your setup is to try it, its why I posted the video so that you can see how its installed and functions.
Once its installed and setup you won’t have to think about it or look at it unless you need to diagnose something.
True, it might be interesting to look more into it, I think I’m gonna try the DIY way anyway, but if I can’t get it to work I will fallback onto this solution. I wonder if it works for rolling them all the way back up, because it seems to be only for tilt, and I wonder if I could change the way it works to roll my blinds all the way back up. Since you get a ton more light when they are rolled all the way up. But thanks for the info!
When you can post up images of your exact setup so that others can help suggest more options, its usually better to have a visual to key into than just a text description if you don’t know the exact brand and model of the blinds etc that you want to control.
You can use a light sensor to detect how much light it should let in and tie it to the circadian integration with a condition that it only activates automatically between sunrise and sunset for example and based on input boolean helper state for what condition you want to use.
If I understand it correctly, your blinds are controlled ‘physically by hand’ so you need to first figure out if/how you can/will replace that manual system with some kind of motor that has enough torque to control it.
Yup! You got it. It’s a rod that you rotate to roll the blinds up or down and when they are down, you can also change the tilt of the blinds.
The rod is already connected to a gimbal (I think that’s the name) so I can already come aligned with the wall with my motor and just create a fitting to correctly connect to the blinds’ rod.
I will make a schematic so y’all can understand it. I didn’t go the new appartement today but tomorrow I’m supposed to go, so I guess I will take some pictures at that moment.
this post!
