51–60 of 155 posts
Setup was not straightforward at all, and I have 10 windows, but it was worth it in the end.
You can write automations in YAML (or TypeScript with [1]), and your blinds can also be controllable with Siri or whatever voice assistant you like.
I have consumer model power roller shades. I love them. If you have a room that gets lots of sun / you like the views, being able to hit a button and open it's an amazing quality of life thing.
I just want to share that these are by far the best home automation you can have. I love my smart lights, hacked together smart humidifier, smart fans (the vornado dc fans with outlet switches), intake air pump, and air quality monitoring. But nothing has the quality of life impact of smart blinds. It’s the best, and probably only, way to reliably keep your sleep schedule in sync. Smart lightbulbs - four of the brigh…
The blinds shown under this article are pretty ordinary vinyl type blinds that leak a ton of light. I wish I could find blinds thick enough to behave like cardboard over windows, that could also be opened on a daily cadence. At this point I gave up on blinds and put a shirt over my eyes to sleep. I thought about just covering the windows permanently but I don't relish that idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The blinds shown under this article are pretty ordinary vinyl type blinds that leak a ton of light. I wish I could find blinds thick enough to behave like cardboard over windows, that could also be opened on a daily cadence. At this point I gave up on blinds and put a shirt over my eyes to sleep. I thought about just covering the windows permanently but I don't relish that idea.
Not sure what country you're from, but "blockout blinds" are likely what you're looking for. They blockout (essentially) all light and are operated like normal blinds.
Fwiw automated blinds in the bedroom are a 100% no brainer benefit. It's wonderful and better than an alarm clock with 0 mental load (set the times to open close across the week once and then never think about them again, you can keep the weekend manual if you like). As in a lot of home automation actually makes things worse. Replacing a convenient light switch with an app? 100% terrible idea and actually makes thing…
You are making assumption I want to wake up that early. Quite opposite - I’m searching for way to completely black out the room since kids will wake up with slightest shred of light, far before daycare starts. And I’m not even living if far lats. But yeah I still want them for convenience. Problem is I don’t want cables dangling around curtains and battery options are limited.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Automated blinds can also have a good effect on temperature control. In the summer you can have your south facing blinds automatically close when you leave the house to block out the sun.
So that's a funny thing, your blinds are on the inside of your house so the sun energy is hitting them and dissipating from there. Hopefully your blinds are white and reflecting more of it out than the other surfaces it would otherwise hit. But if you want to make a real temperature difference you need blinds on the other side of the insulated box otherwise known as an awning.
"I doubled up the relays feeding the main motor and the heating coil, which gives a lot more headroom on the amperage" ...That's not how that works. One of the relays is going to close first, and those set of contacts will take all the load. Similarly, one set is going to bear all the drama from breaking the connection (and with the motor, there's inductive kickback.) The correct way to do this is to look up the moto…
A little OTT. How do people learn to maintain their house or learn to hack improvements? Should we all have your expertise? Perhaps you think paying a qualified installer would be better?
Any work on your home or car or whatever runs risks. Making mistakes is often an important part of learning (and can be expensive). Being a Swiss watch isn't a good compromise.
It is great that you share your knowledge: good feedback is difficult to get.
Fwiw automated blinds in the bedroom are a 100% no brainer benefit. It's wonderful and better than an alarm clock with 0 mental load (set the times to open close across the week once and then never think about them again, you can keep the weekend manual if you like). As in a lot of home automation actually makes things worse. Replacing a convenient light switch with an app? 100% terrible idea and actually makes thing…
> As in a lot of home automation actually makes things worse. Replacing a convenient light switch with an app? 100% terrible idea and actually makes things inconvenient, don't automate those. The key to proper home automation is not to destroy the "normal" functions already in place, but to augment them with automation. Smart switches that do not function without connectivity are not smart. I discourage new implement…
An automated porch light that hasn’t been touched in 10years and blinds that had the schedule setup once and forgotten about for 5 years are examples of fantastic automation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could we hear more about your home automation stack? I'm looking to get into this myself.
Can't speak for OP, but just get Home Assistant running and play around. It'll work in Docker in anything, but it's a good use for an old Raspberry Pi. There isn't much more of a stack than that, and HA is by far the most polished OSS solution. It's got some sharp edges - every time I've done a major auto-update it's broken something critical. You can run it alongside other controllers like the Hue Bridge, which is n…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So that's a funny thing, your blinds are on the inside of your house so the sun energy is hitting them and dissipating from there. Hopefully your blinds are white and reflecting more of it out than the other surfaces it would otherwise hit. But if you want to make a real temperature difference you need blinds on the other side of the insulated box otherwise known as an awning.
The only tricky part being that it's desirable to limit the amount of sun shining into the house in the warmer months, but not the cooler ones. Awnings that fold or are otherwise removable are a reasonable solution, there are also sunshades which mount outside, and also use a spinning rod to raise and lower (if the electronics and motor here could be weatherproofed a little they might be quite usable).