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$30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

sifter.org

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Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

#101

Post by scotty79 »

foobarian wrote: post #46
J_Shelby_J wrote: post #8

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.

I don't really understand having trouble with light when you sleep. Personally if I'm tired I happily sleep on summer noon with window opened. Just not in direct sunlight to avoid sunburn. And it's super pleasant experience for me. Better than regular sleep in the darkness at night.

Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

#102

Post by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 »

Animats wrote: post #96

Powered 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)

> Linear induction motors were invented for curtains

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wheatstone would like a word

Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

#103

Post by scotty79 »

kirillzubovsky wrote: post #95

Great job! I bet so many of us (self included) had this nagging need to do this, but you actually followed through. Kudos!

I had thought of this many times, but automating stuff around the house always hits a wall of "do I really want to have less reasons to stand up from my computer?".

Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

#104

Post by scotty79 »

threatofrain wrote: post #19
J_Shelby_J wrote: post #8

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…

Could we hear more about your home automation stack? I'm looking to get into this myself.

I think you can read about OP's automation stack here: https://sifter.org/~simon/journal/20240412.html

Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

#105

Post by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #64
robocat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't fuck with mains / appliances / HVAC / household water supply if you don't know what you're doing. This guy has no fucking idea what he's doing 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…

>How do people learn to maintain their house or learn to hack improvements? You don't when it comes to mains electric. You hire an electrician who learned through study, training and certification rather than just proding things until it either works or kills you. Play around with low voltage power all you want but leave mains voltage alone.

> You don't when it comes to mains electric

You definitely can. Any residential home in the US was probably built by those who had no formal training on "mains electric" and was inspected by a building inspector who also knows nothing really about electricity, but can follow guidelines.

It isn't difficult to buy devices that are built and rated to interface low voltage with "mains electric".

The issue is when you arrogantly assume you know things you don't, and that can harm you regardless of the application. Yet, that is often a path for some to learn and become experts or cautionary tales.

IMO, the gatekeeping risk-averse shouldn't stand on soap boxes attempting to dictate the lives of the curious.

Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

#106

Post by m463 »

mikepurvis wrote: post #92
foobarian wrote: post #46

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.

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.

I got something similar (amazon yoolax blackout cellular honeycomb shades). They have extra help from L-shaped side panels blocking light along the sides.

bedroom is ultra-dark, with just a hint of light.

Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

#107

Post by theshrike79 »

mikepurvis wrote: post #94
Larrikin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

PyScript runs inside HA and IIRC the Python in it has some quirks because of it.

AppDaemon[0] runs alongside it and is more "real" Python, it mostly just responds to events sent to it.

NodeRED has a direct integration and is (in my experience) best for complex state machines as you can easily debug them and actually see the logic work.

They also have a REST API to trigger things and a Websocket API if you need more real-time stuff (subscribing to events instead of querying states)

Then there is just straight up MQTT, where you need to do it all yourself.

What HA shines is that it tends to have ready-made community integrations with _everything_. And enough users for each that if something breaks, people will notice and it'll be fixed promptly.

[0] https://github.com/AppDaemon/appdaemon

Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

#108

Post by bjackman »

Spivak wrote: post #47
seanalltogether wrote: post #20

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.

You can 100% achieve a real temperature difference with unpainted wooden internal blinds. I'm sure you can achieve much more with an ideal setup but just sharing from experience, what OP has can easily make a difference of several degrees.

Re: $30 Homebrew Automated Blinds Opener (2024)

#110

Post by TimByte »

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #8

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…

There's just something about waking up to actual sunlight (even filtered through clouds) that no amount of artificial brightness can replicate. It's like your brain knows the difference.
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