Did you know, you can transform your dumb blinds to smart, and it would not cost you an arm and a leg?
Probably, you are already aware of the smart blinds but are unsure how to upgrade from the bunch of those dumb old blinds to smart. My guide will unquestionably help you in this aspect, so read on.
What is the benefits of installing smart blinds?
Quite expectedly, the installation of smart appliances and devices offer a host of benefits, and the smart blinds are no different.
I guess you can already presume some of the benefits associated with the smart blinds like energy savings, here I list some more.
Convenience
With the installation of the smart blinds, you no longer have to shoulder the responsibility of opening and closing them.
You can now perform these functions by controlling from an app on a smartphone, a remote control, or a button. By covering the windows at the proper intervals, you can reduce the solar gains and avoid heat loss.
Generally, we tend to forget opening and closing the blinds manually, as we remain involved in other essential activities. With the smart blinds, you can schedule its actions at specific times.
Energy Savings
As you can expect, when the motorized blinds connect to your smart home hub, you can bring down the energy costs significantly. Since these smart blinds will drastically reduce the amount of energy, the HVAC system consumes.
The smart blinds are capable of reacting based on the temperature readings and have sunlight sensors as well. Thus, the blinds will close on their own when the sun is blazing down to make the rooms cooler.
As a result, HVAC usage is less. Likewise, during the wintry conditions, the blinds will remain open to allow the sunlight to enter the room and heat the room naturally.
Smart Home Integration
As you can understand, after reading the points mentioned above, the smart blinds have a direct connection with the smart thermostats. Ultimately, these modern blinds have an immediate impact on smart home integration.
The smart thermostats work throughout the day, calculating the temperature of the home and turning on the air conditioning or the smart blinds accordingly.
When you have the smart blinds, the thermostat can close the blinds instead of turning on the air conditioning, or the vice versa. Thus, these smart blinds have a vital role to play.
Smart Lighting
You can pair the smart blinds with the smart lighting systems. In this way, the smart blinds can maximize the amount of daylight that your home requires.
So, when the smart blinds open, the smart lights can turn it off, and when the smart blinds close, the smart lights can turn it on. When this happens, you are again saving on the unnecessary usage of lights and saving on the energy costs.
Increasing the R-value of your home
Do not have a smart home? No problem, installing the smart blinds will still be beneficial. It can add to the insulation value to the windows of your house.
For instance, the conventional honeycomb and traditional roller blinds give you a value of more than 4, which is a lot more than a double-glazed window.
Additionally, you can also go for the motorized drapes, when you do, they are going to add an insulating layer to the windows of your home.
Enhanced safety
If you have small kids at your home, you will regard the smart blinds as a boon. Since these blinds are cordless, you no longer have the ordeal for keeping the cords out of the reach of the children. Some of the modern smart blinds offer an extra level of security.
There is a particularly smart blind that connects to the smoke alarm system if it detects fire inside the home, this helps in timely intervention, and the damages can be significantly minimized.
Security
For the sake of the safety of our home, we do not leave any stones unturned. The smart home has inevitably enhanced the home security measures, and the smart blinds also contribute to it.
Since you can control the opening and closing of the shades from a remote place, it gives the impression to outsiders or trespassers someone is inside the house.
Again, when the smart blinds integrate with the smart home system, you can program the blinds to shut down when there are no occupants in the house and open when they return, with the help of geo-fencing and a smartphone.
Inexpensive
Of course, there are several energy-saving solutions out there. But, most of them are expensive. Here, you can convert your ordinary blinds to smart ones, and the cost of doing so will not burn a hole in your pocket.
So, as you can see, the installation of smart blinds is a smart decision regardless of whether you are living in a smart home or not.
How to make your dumb blinds smarts?
When you intend to turn your dumb blinds to smart, you are eventually reverse engineering them.
The good thing is you have some options to choose from.
Furthermore, keep your fingers crossed, as we are only witnessing the dawn of smart home systems.
Hopefully, you will not need to wait too long for getting new and innovative choices. For the time being, you can choose from the Blind Engine Kit, the MySmartBlinds Automation kit and the DIY guide.
Blind Engine Kit (1st Option)
The idea of installing smart blinds alone can be an expensive affair as most homes have many windows that have shades and installing smart blinds to each of them is going to burn a hole in your pocket.
However, with the Blind Engine Kit (click to check current price on Amazon), your desire of getting smart blinds out of the dumb old blinds will succeed. But, do remember, you must obtain prior information on the types of blinds Blind Engine will support, along with the range, weight, and support.
It is incredibly easy to install and is very affordable. The kit manufacturer ascertains it will work with the roman shades, roller shades, vertical blinds, horizontal blinds, and roll type curtains.
Their functionality is limited or non-existent for the cloth curtains, pull cord blinds, blinds with lock buttons, blinds attached to a large connector, and the cordless blinds.
The Blind Engine Kit offers two types of gear that works well with the standard string cords, small ball chains, and large ball chains.
The engine has a capacity of 10ft by 10ft and can support up to 15lbs of weight. You can easily control the Blind Engine Kit with your smartphone, and it also gives you the liberty to control several blinds at a time.
It also comes with location recognition control, and voice control, which is a must considering Amazon Alexa, and Google Home Assistant is now an integral part of the smart homes.
Lastly, the Blind Engine Kit includes an emergency auto stop feature which is rather handy, when it detects additional pressure or weight, it will stop.
MySmartBlinds Automation Kit (2nd Option)
Immediately, after the smart blind transformation, on the back of your mind, you may be thinking about the high energy bills. With the MySmartBlinds Automation Kit (click to check current price on Amazon), you can bid adieu to those worries.
You can now run the blinds with solar power, so there is no electricity consumption.
However, the convenience of saving energy bills does come with a cost, as installing them is not easy, and it also does not work with all blinds. Precisely, it will work only on the 2”-3” horizontal blinds, and nothing else.
If you do manage to install the MySmartBlinds, you will soon figure out it has an admirable app that supports both Android and iOS devices.
Additionally, you get the convenience of setting up daily and weekly schedules. Thus they will automatically go up and down on specific hours of the day. And as you may have guessed already, it works with the voice control.
How to install MySmartBlinds automation kit to dumb blinds?
Watch this video.
A complete DIY guide to automate your dumb blinds (3rd Option)
Yes, you read it correctly, if you can spend some quality time and arrange a few things you can make your old blinds smart too. My DIY guide will help you in this aspect (If you find DIY to make dumb blind smart then, you go with 1st option or 2nd option).
To convert your ordinary blinds Primarily, you should get some items that include Alexa Device, Blinds, Blind Motor, Power Adaptor, Blinds Tube 10 ft, Adhesive Tape and RF Device.
Would you believe it, the cost of all these products is lesser than the smart blinds which are readily available?
Preliminarily, you will need to set up the hardware and then I will show you how to set up the software to work for these blinds.
The Hardware Setup
The first step would be to measure the length of the window. The next step requires replacing the support bar for the sake of installing the motor. Pick up a 1-1/4 inch EMT conduit from your local hardware store.
Usually, they are lengthier, but you can cut it to match the width of the blinds. You should also remember rolling the tube on the ground before purchasing to ensure the tube is straight.
Remove the old tube, by unrolling the blinds until you reach the end. Do not stop, and keep unrolling. Now, you can mark on the tube on the specific places where you need to cut it.
Once the cutting is over, you can now add the motor. I used the 25mm Motor Kit and Remote Controller (click to check current price on Amazon) as I wanted it to have sufficient power.
You can trim the motor so that it adequately fits inside the pole. You can do it easily by cutting the plastic tabs on a precise angle with the help of cutting pliers, and soon you will reach the pole. Next, use a block and depress the spring and hammer the fitting inside the pole.
Fitting the motor
Initially, you can cut the small guide bumps at the side and repeat the same on the opposite side. Similarly, you need to cut the end of the motor rubber to its metal for making it a proper fit inside the tube.
Once done, you can now push the motor into the tube. It is time now, to add the blinds to the tube. A double-sided carpet tape (click to check current price on Amazon) for attaching the shade to the pole will be handy for this purpose.
Ensure, to guide the tape placement properly and accordingly keep wrapping the tape, and line it up. Remove the outer tape cover. For attaching the blind to the pole, roll it to connect the remaining portion of the blind.
Pause here, and recheck if you have managed to cover all the steps in a proper manner. Remember, if things are not organized properly, the blinds will not work the way you intend. Once assured, put the motor mount on a convenient side near to the electrical outlet.
The time now to hook up the blinds and begin a test run, if you notice the blinds are not moving you should try pairing the remote with the blinds, you will find the instructions on the manual of the motor product.
Again, if you notice, the blinds are not moving in the right direction, you can change the rotation direction of the motor.
Setting up the blinds with the window
Now you are ready to set up the blinds for the windows. Again, you can find the instructions to do so in the manual of the motor.
Furthermore, it also has the necessary details on setting the lower and upper limit of the blinds. Your next step would be to mount the curtain for covering the blind roll; you can make use of a metal bracket and Velcro.
You can also use some hot glue to secure the cord look tidy; this will also be a cheaper option in comparison to the electrical guide rails, if you can bang the buck, then you are free to select the guide rails.
That is it! Your hardware setup and motorizing the blinds is complete.
The Software Setup
Get yourself the latest version of RM Pro (click to check current price on Amazon) probably this is the best device which controls radio frequency. It will help you in managing the blinds.
You can set up the device by following the instructions that come with it for connecting it to your 2.4 GHz WI-Fi. The next step would involve downloading the app with which you will control the blinds.
Download the e-control app which is available for both the iOS and Android devices. Since we have already mentioned about the Android box in the pre-requisites section we will be using an Android device only, the reason being simple, the Android box is far cheaper than the Apple devices.
Working with the app
Once the app download is complete including the setting up of the RM Pro, you are all set. Initially make sure loading the RM Pro device into the app.
Now, select add a new remote and define it with specifications adding up, down, and stop buttons. You can now program each command by clicking on the button and following the on-screen instructions.
Here comes Alexa
Download a plugin to set up the blinds with Alexa. For better results, you can download a third-party app RM Plugin which will facilitate your voice commands further.
Go to the settings section in the e-control app and then share. From here, tap the option “Share to other phones in WLAN option.” Now revisit the general settings page of the RM Plugin app and select the “Force import Data from e-control.”
Do not forget to enable the Alexa bridge option; you will find this in the main menu itself. You should add an Alexa device and map the blinds close command from another option “Select an existing code”:
After you are done with the plugin setup, the only thing that remains is incorporating the commands with Alexa. You can now click on the discover devices; you will notice the blinds control are showing there.
Test it, by voicing your commands, like Alexa turn on the shades or turn off the shades or in any other way you want. That is it; you have now successfully transformed your old blinds to smart.
Top smart blinds that you need to consider
Meanwhile, I understand, not everyone will undertake the liberty of making smart blinds out of the old ones. So, here are the best choices you got at present.
The costs vary, and not all of them are affordable. You can, however, decide which one you should go for based on your buying capacity and if you cannot do with the features on offer. So, here goes the list.
Lutron Serena
Here comes the expensive variant. Lutron Serena offers some of the best smart blinds which you could ever imagine. For added convenience, the manufacturer provides a tool with which you can design the shades on your preferences.
Regardless of the type of window, color and roll type, they have everything in the store. You can go for the remote control offered by the manufacturer, and the smart home option.
For this, you will have to purchase the Lutron Smart Bridge (click to check current price on Amazon) It works with the smart home systems very well. You have complete control over the operations after you install these smart blinds at your home.
Somfy Blinds
Somfy is a massive name in the world of smart blinds. But, you will not find it easy to set things up according to your expectations.
Your primary task would be choosing a motor, and then try out the options which are limitless, it will mainly depend on the type of blinds you own.
It is the controlling part that gets complicated. If you can manage to get the hang of how things work, then you should not have any problems working with it.
The manufacturer supplies an app, the Somfy myLink app for handling the motor. Similarly, you have the option to choose from other units that can integrate with your smart home system.
You should not try to set things up and resort on the personnel from the company to do the set up for you. Of course, it works well with the voice control assistants.
Conclusion
After going through this guide, it should be clear; you have a wide array of choices. You are free to choose the best option based on your comfort level, and of course, if you have the time and patience, you can build your smart blinds too.
Not everyone can afford to invest their valuable time for the DIY methods, so go for any one of these products. After the successful installation of the smart blinds, you will have enough reasons to smile.
