Nadine would be proud.
$30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
91–100 of 155 posts
Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
#92I 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.
I use a pull-down honeycomb shade with a basement window that's behind my TV:
https://www.amazon.ca/Persilux-Blackout-Cellular-Protection-...
It's a total blackout, though it definitely benefits from the window being deeply inset; on a typical bedroom window at midday I expect a bunch of light would find its way around that.
Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
My blinds don’t work as an alarm clock for me at all. I sleep with a pillow over my eyes, no amount of light is going to wake me up.
I use a silk sleep mask. They’re incredible. Added benefit is that it helps hold your eyelids closed on days when you’re not very sleepy. It’s also one thing I only do when actually attempting to sleep. I swear I get sleepy the second I feel that super-light tension on my head
I like the pressure of the full pillow on my head and covering my ears
Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Home Assistant is nice for this crowd in that you can actually use a real programming language to do the automations. I went with PyScript but NodeRed is very popular as well. No need for YAML
Can you? I should give it another try. I remember giving it a look a few years ago and it looked like a considerable amount of the setup was going to take place through a web GUI and then be persisted in its internal database. For a server I have to maintain over time, I'd rather things be as stateless as possible so that the cost of doing a scripted redeploy is basically zero.
Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
#95Great job! I bet so many of us (self included) had this nagging need to do this, but you actually followed through. Kudos!
Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
#96Powered blinds and curtains are common, but powered home windows are very rare. Even though home control systems which managed windows would be great for heating and cooling. Interesting that they're not as common as electric auto windows.
(Linear induction motors were invented for curtains. Really. Kirsch Electrac)
Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
#97Fwiw 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…
I've got a few lighting automations (turning the lights on when I come home, dimming the lights at night, etc.) and I disagree on the idea that home automation makes things all that much worse.
It doesn't take that much effort to find smart devices with a manual override button. As for lights, the IKEA ones I have are programmed to turn on after cutting the power regardless of smart setting, so all of my physical light switches still work if my automations fail. Toggling them that way kind of screws up the Zigbee network, but I'm not losing any functionality if the Zigbee controller dies.
As for the blinds, you have to place those strategically. You wouldn't be the first one to come out of bed or out of the shower and surprise flashing your neighbours because the smart blinds opened without you noticing.
Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment makes no sense. You choose when you want your automated blinds to open, if you don't want to wake up early, just don't set them to open early?
This comment also makes no sense... they said completely black out a room, which blinds alone cannot do.
Blinds bolted on to the window frame can't, but blinds integrated into the window frame definitely can.
Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment makes no sense. You choose when you want your automated blinds to open, if you don't want to wake up early, just don't set them to open early?
This comment also makes no sense... they said completely black out a room, which blinds alone cannot do.
Yes they can, the thing you're looking for is literally called black-out blinds. Installed properly, they don't let any light in even when it's high noon outside.
Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)
#100Earlier 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).
In cooler months the sun is lower over the horizon so the awning block less of it.