Hi all. I’ve just had an estimate for Hunter-Douglas motorized shades for my kid’s bedroom at about $950, and that’s before I buy any adapters to get these to work with my Veralite. I’m wondering if there’s a better way to go. I’m new to both Z-wave and motorized blinds, but I’m not shy of DIY electrics.
Has any one got experience retrofitting non-motorized cellular blinds with Somfy motors? How hard is this, and what should I look for in a cellular blind so it can take the motor. Would you recommend 24vDC or 110v AC motors? It seems it’d be easier to run a spur straight from my mains circuit rather than have to wire in 24v DC power.
Finally, www.shadesshuttersblinds.com has pretty good prices for Somfy 24v DC motorized blinds. Anyone used this company? Their prices seem almost too good to be true. This might be easier than fitting the motors myself.
I’ve used that company before. They are cheep, but their shades are high quality. i bought two cellular shades with an IR controller (prior to me implementing zwave) powered by 8 AA batteries each. I’ve had the shades over two years now, and they are still going strong. I open and close them once a day, every day, and the batteries lasted two years.
That company will send you color samples. I have also emailed them and called them and they were very accomodating and responsive.
Like you, i now am trying to figure out which RF somfy motors/controllers will work with zwave, and then im going to call shadesshhuttersblinds.com to see if they can use that specific somfy model in their blinds.
do you know if ill need a bridge to work with the blinds? i noticed there is a third party somfy plugin for vera.
A Somfy plugin? Anyone got good experience using this?
I spoke to the www.shadesshuttersblinds.com customer support and they told me they use Somfy ST-50 blinds for 110vac (I’m decorating, I may as well run power). So I was planning on using Z-Wave to ILT interfaces. But at $180 a pop it might be interesting to look at getting at the somfy plugin and getting just one controller.
I really want graduated control of the blinds though (0-100%, not just up/down) with 2-way communication. Can the Somfy plugin/controller provide that?
Did you find a solution? I’m facing the same situation.
I really want graduated control of the blinds though (0-100%, not just up/down) with 2-way communication.
Check www.zwavemotors.com
Native Z-Wave motors with with full bi-directional control, positioning and reporting, every 1% with the tubular motors, 10% with the drapery motors. Currently AC power only