doing blinds on the cheap

Other Devices & Integrations Garage & Window Covering Control
81

[quote=“woofguy, post:80, topic:172697”]Hello Everyone,

This is my first post in the forums, I’ve been a lurker for a long time.
I have had these blinds since about September of last year and they are incredible!
I’ve never had an issue, the batteries last for months (Still on the original set I installed them with)
and the RF remote works everywhere in my Condo.

I have a VeraLite system and have pretty much my whole house on Vera (with the exception of my blinds!!)
We have been looking for a solution that is Z-wave or Insteon that would take the RF signals from the remote and “Learn” or “Mimic” them and then function with Vera.
Has anyone found a way to do this yet? I’m pretty geeky but I’m not great with soldering stuff and I have never worked with a DIY relay before.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!![/quote]
I would love to hear this, too!

82

If you have motorized window coverings with a Radio Frequency (RF) remote control, then there are a couple of options. You can see if they would be supported by the RFXCom transceiver, by emailing them (http://www.rfxcom.com/). Or you can buy an extra remote control, or take apart your exisitng remote and solder wires to the button contacts on the circuit board then have the wires connect to a set of relays to trigger the button presses.

The relays could be serial controlled:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,8585.0.html

Or controlled through an Arduino:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,17118.0.html

Or Z-Wave relays:
Remotec ZFM-80 Z-wave relay

83

As posted before, with minimum soldering, a 12-24VDC power supply and our dry contact to Z-Wave module, any motor transmitter (open-stop-close) can be made Z-Wave compatible and controlled via Vera.
contact us at info@zwavemotors.com

84

Set it up like the garage door opener app and LFM-20. Find my post on how to hack a remote garage door opener button and the LFM-20 will press the button on your remote when you select it. Change the length of button press as per your need /time to open, if it’s not a momentary quick button press. The LMF-20 just has to be connected to the remote anywhere in the area to control the blinds. Youtube solder videos and other garage door button wiring hacks can help. Find the button that needs to be pressed on the board of the remote flip the board over and find the lines/pins feeding into that button that completes the circuit and tells the blinds to open. you can use a paper clip to touch 2 pins at a time and see if that triggers the blinds. solder to those pins on the back of the board. The LMF-20 = the paper clip. You would need two relays one for the “open” button and one for the “close” button. Homebuddy app widget will make for an easy 1 button press for open and close

[quote=“Intrepid, post:1, topic:172697”]I don’t need motorized shades, but they would be so cool. The price and need for power/control wires routed to the have scared me off.

But these:

…are $100 each. Battery powered, RF remote, no wires.

What would be the options for controlling via z-wave/vera? Mod a remote?[/quote]

85

Hi All,

I also recently purchased some of these blinds.com cellular shades. Was able to get them working by using an RF transmitter and HEK’s MySensors Arduino plugin. The transmitter only cost $1.50 because I already had some sensors and the Arduino gateway. If you are starting from scratch it should be under $20. There is a little learning curve but it is the most fun project I have had in a while!

Here is a video if anyone’s interested: Integrating Blinds.com Motorized Cellular Shades with MiCasaVerde Vera using Arduino - YouTube

Also, a write up on how to do it yourself: Controlling Blinds.com RF Dooya Motors with Arduino and Vera | MySensors Forum

Pete

86

nice pete.

sniffing out those rf codes gives me lots of new ideas

87

FYI - I just purchased myself a full solution from rollertrol for one of my windows (not cheap though; $500+) If all goes well and if I?m satisfied with the product, I plan to setup a few more windows.

You should know that; my first email I sent (to a few vendors including rollertrol) while I was exploring this new ?area? for me, it said something like; <<I am very new at motorized blinds, so if I buy from you, can I count on you (after I tell you all my needs) to provide a fully integrated solution, with no bad surprises>> (I hate ordering something, and after receiving the package and unboxing it, to realizing I am missing something else, that the vendor didn?t bother tell me in the first place)
Well guess what, when I received my box, it didn?t have the remote-control, so I cannot really test it with my vera3 until they ship me this &^%%&$ remote-control

What I can tell you so far is that the instructions are a bit cryptic (what else is new with zwave in general) I managed to wire the motor (but could not program it yet without the remote) and I managed to install the RFXCOMM device in my vera3 (but I cannot test it because I don?t have the remote)

I asked them yesterday to expedite the remote RUSH? we?ll see. It?s not the best “start” between rollertrol and me, but hopefully this was just a one-time glitch in their business-process and things will work out well now. I can update this thread later (with my impressions on how well/easy the assembly/installation went) after I have finished installing everything, and maybe I can insert a few pictures if anyone is interested.

Claude

88

Well as you can see, they didn’t ship the remote express, but I must say that the installation was very easy

89

Hello Claude.

I was about to buy from Rollertrol and am glad I saw your post. This is my first post and I am starting to buy Vera Lite and zwave appliances. And one of my needs is to control a shade and a drapery. Looking for answers on the web, I ended up at rollertrol.

Based on your experience, what do you recommend to buy? I ask this because they have a lot of kits and I don’t want to have the same bad experience you had with something missing, as I am going to buy all the stuff on a vacation trip to US.

Can you help with any comment?

Thanks in advance.

Klaus

90

So it appears that the blinds.com cellular shades, are based upon the Dooya DV24CE motors.
(based upon petewill’s writeup [url=http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/7/controlling-blinds-com-rf-dooya-motors-with-arduino-and-vera#14]Controlling Blinds.com RF Dooya Motors with Arduino and Vera | MySensors Forum)

Dooya DV24CE Motor: [url=http://www.dooya.com/category_end_en.php?id=2]dooya
Remote for Motor Dooya 1600 [url=http://www.dooya.com/category_end_en.php?id=41]dooya

The remote operates on 433.90Mhz ± 100KHz. Actually looks like the Dooya DC92 remote.
RFXtrx433 USB: [url=http://www.rfxcom.com/store/Transceivers/12103]http://www.rfxcom.com/store/Transceivers/12103[/url]

Could I use the RFXtrx433 USB 433.92MHz Transceiver to operate the blinds via Vera directly? Thus avoiding any of the dry contact relay setups?

Petewill seemed to think it was possible, but his solution using Ardino is different than using the RFXtrx433. Also there are slight difference in the frequency specs, with Dooya saying 433.90Mhz and RFXtrx433 saying 433.92Mhz.

91

Hi, just a brief comment about Claude’s missing remote. We strive to provide good service, but sometimes we make mistakes. The remote was accidentally left out of the shipment and it was shipped as soon as we heard about it.

We do have many, many satisfied clients worldwide, if you look at the testimonials page on our website.

Regards, Adrian

Adrian Biffen
Customer Service
RollerTrol Automation Systems

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I did several rooms with RollerTrol ( battery powered ) a few months ago and they are working nicely. Adrian’s customer support is also top notch.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

93

Hi Klaus,

First let me start on the “negative” points; The first time around they forgot to pack the remote so I had to wait 3-4 days until I received it before I could be able to program the roller shades. And the second time I ordered from them, they sent the wrong brackets so I couldn?t install anything for another 3-4 days until they shipped the right brackets.

For many people, waiting an extra 3-4 days is not a big deal and I must say that the guy at Rollertrol did his best to fix their errors quickly therefore I wouldn’t call my experience a bad experience. I have not totally given up on them :wink:

For my first experience, I bought everything from Rollertrol (the tubular-motor (RF), the remote-control, and the fabric (tarp) on a roll) But the second time, after I realized how “relatively” easy it was to install everything, I only bought the tubular RF motors from Rollertrol and I bought the fabric (on a roll) at a local store near my home.

For me, the stressful portion was making sure I measured the inside of my window frame as accurately as possible because there is a little bit of margin to play with but not that much. The main point for you to know is the exact dimension of your window frame, whether you want to install the tube inside the window frame or above the window, and whether you want to fabric to roll on the window side or the room side (if that?s important for you)

I have purchased only the roller-shades so I have no experience with draperies (yet). And as usual with z-waves devices, the instructions are often obscure and difficult to understand for a newbie (but this has nothing to do with Rollertrol). So you have to be resourceful and read a lot of different threads in different forums. In my case, nothing came with any kind of printed instructions whatsoever, they ask you to read the instructions on the website which was Ok fo me.

You will also need to buy their RFXCOM box and plug it into a free USB port on your vera (do you have a free USB port?). My understanding of this device is that vera does not communicate to tubular-motor directly… In short, your vera communicates to your RFXCOM box, and this box communicates to your remote-control (which communicates to your tubular motor)

Also know that one remote can control many tubular-motors (I think 10 if I recall?) and of course also the RFXCOM box can control many devices, so you will only need to buy 1 RFXCOM box and possibly buy only one 1 remote-control.

Good luck with your project
Claude

94

Thank you for your considerations. I will look into it. Any news from your system? Is is working ok now?

Keep us informed.

Regards

Klaus

95

Claude,
Hope you give us a try when you are ready for your drapery tracks.
Our drapery motors are Z-Wave native the same way our roller shade motors are a breeze to set up, really plug and play
info@zwavemotors.com

96

Hi Klaus,
Yes it works. the only small glitch is that sometimes the motor seems to forget its [tt]lower limit[/tt], so the tarp goes down a little bit too much than I had programmed it to do (maybe like half an inch or 1-2 centimeters if you prefer) When you first setup your roller shades, you have to program the upper limit you want your tarp to roll up and program the lower limit you want your tarp to stop unrolling down (before it hits the bottom of the window) so in a few months, it’s the second time the I have to reprogram the upper/lower limit (not a big deal). Also, I had purchased 2 rollers for 2 windows one window being just beside the other window, so I wanted both rollers to go up at the same time, and at the same speed, so that is now a little “out of sync” (not a big deal)
Overall I am very happy with being able to raise and lower the shades automatically based on time of day.

97

you are a very nice customer; some customers would never put up with readjusting limits every couple of months.

98

Here is one option for DIY automated blinds on a budget using bluetooth. The good thing about this one is that you don’t have to have any other automation gear to set them up…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/551966671/automate-your-blinds-with-a-smart-control-kit-in-1?ref=category_popular

99

@Shady or Knewmani. I got Veralite and tried instructions provided by Knewmania (big thanks). However, it doesnt show blinds1/2 in quadrelay. I only see projectorscreen. Not sure if parts/plugin compatible with veralite. I m newbie to this so help is really appreciated. Thanks - Aj

100

6 months ago we started on a similar project, our goal was to motorize all the blinds in our office. Since we didn’t find an affordable and easy to install option we created our own :slight_smile: Long story short, now we want to share it with you, maybe what we built is useful to others too.

We just added solar panels for convinience and now we are on crowdfunding platform Smart Shades - automate your window shades | Indiegogo

​Good luck with your home automation projects and check us out on www.theriseapp.com