I plan on outfitting my basement with these blinds.com shades in the near future. Instead of going the USB attached RS232 route, I decided I wanted to use something similar using relays, but that I could control over IP whether over 802.11x or ethernet. While I don’t have the blinds yet, I have worked out all the issues and integrated a raspberry pi with an 8 channel relay that is integrating very nicely with the vera. I can see it triggering what will be the handheld shade RF controller soldered up to the relays.
Here is how I’m doing it.
I’m combining three different ideas from people much smarter than I.
A) 8 Ch Relay ($12) attaches to a raspberry pi A or B
Raspberry Pi: 8 Channel Relay step-by-step with software examples for automation - YouTube
B) Express-GPIO
This is an excellent piece of software that opens up a web server on the raspberry pi on port 3000 and takes http requests in order to control the pins, which in turn trigger the relays from the project in step A.
C) The Vera luup code tied to a scene (i.e. “Blind Up” “Blind Down” or whatever)
This is just basic luup code that I’ve used in the past to make http request for controlling vlc player, but it applies here.
os.execute(‘curl -g “http://192.168.1.XXX:3000/gpio/3/low/”’)
os.execute(‘curl -g “http://192.168.1.XXX:3000/gpio/3/high/”’)
Change the XXX to the IP of your Raspberry Pi on the network, and change the 3 to whatever GPIO pin you want to control.
All said and done, I have a scene that when triggered flips the relay on then off simulating a touch on the handheld controller
Only thing left to do is wire up the remote once I have one.
Benefits
-Relatively Cheap (Rpi B is 25-30 bucks, relay is $12)
-RPi can be used for other random uses in a HA system.
Benefits over the RS232 solution:
-8 channel relay ( can control 4 blind sets for up and down.)
-is not limited by the length of a USB cord.
-Can work wirelessly over wifi or for a more reliable solution, hard wired to the network. This allows better placement options if you plan on doing lots of blinds around the house.
-leaves usb port open for other uses.
-no plugins required
-very little if any extra overhead over normal scenes.
-You can build additional relays as needed
Drawbacks over RS232 solution:
-Requires a network to be in place in the home, but if you have a vera you probably have some sort of IP network anyways.
Other Drawbacks:
Still no feedback of what state the curtain is currently in. (might be able to guess with some sort of virtual device setup that relies on the last scene triggered, but thats beyond my current abilities)
Hope this helps someone and I will report back once I actully have blinds in my hands to test this on.
If anyone needs any help with the rpi software configuration I can help as well.
Long story short, now we want to share it with you, maybe what we built is useful to others too.