Does anyone know if there are battery-driven (preferably) z-wave motors for plastic-chain roll-up blinds to motorize them?
Perhaps they mount on the door or window, and a sprocket engages the daisy chain to raise or lower the blinds.
Thanks!
I work in the motorized window covering world and I don’t know of any battery motors that could be made to work with z-wave. You could hack a Somfy battery motor, bypassing their radio receiver and wire the motor leads and batteries to a DBMZ Z-Wave low voltage shade controller from ASIHome. But I’m not sure that would work and the batteries may not last very long. If you can, find a way to get low voltage wire to the shade (16G), as batteries are a PITA.
Right now the best solutions for Z-Wave roller shades are the Somfy ILT Motor (AC) and the ST-30 RS485 Motor (24VDC), both which require the addition of a Somfy Z-Wave Receiver. You should measure the inside diameter of your roller shade tube to see what could fit inside. Whose shades are they?
They are generic roll-up shades, and unfortunately I don’t recall the vendor.
I am looking into a somfy set up as you mentioned.
Thank you.
The thing with tubular motors is that they need adapters to either fit and lock to the tube profile as they are inserted into the tube, and/or the drive adapters are screwed to the tube. This is why your tube inside diameter and profile are important to sizing a motor and adapter combo.
The battery motors currently work with Somfy RTS Radio and there is already a plug-in for the Univeral RTS Interface for Vera via a serial to USB cable. But keep in mind that this is a one-way communication and won’t report status and confirm movement like Z-Wave.
Look at your clutch on the manual shades to see if they are Rollease or some other known company that Somfy may already have an adapter for.
The Somfy ST-30 is the most quiet option, but could be the most expensive considering Motor/Z-Wave Box/Power Supply. The ILT is the next quietest motor, but it is AC and would require a larger tube/box on the window/etc, but saves some money because you don’t need the Power Supply like with the ST-30. Then there is the Somfy Standard Motor used with an ESI ABMHZ or Lagotek AC1-ZW external controller which can be ordered quiet, but you’ll have to find a place for the external motor controller (homerun wires back to central area or fit the control box in the shade valance, etc).