I’ve just started looking at adding a couple power blinds and of course they need to be z-wave. I literally don’t know where to begin but here’s my situation so maybe someone could give me a path to go down.
I want to add two blinds to windows in my master bath. The windows are over a large tub that’s hard to get to without stepping in the tub and there is no power near them. So I’m thinking DC power source is the way to go, beyond that I’m lost.
Do I get regular blinds from Home Depot and add a motor and controller (how hard is that?)? Do I order them with the motor already and add a z-wave controller? Does someone make a complete kit, just send them the dimensions and receive a set of Z–Wave enabled DC power blinds?
How much money do you have to spend? No need to answer that, but for roller shades with quality motors, installed, after mark-up, etc they can run about $1000 per window. For the DIY person, you can buy a lot of this stuff off of the internet and make it work yourself with potential savings.
For Z-Wave blind control, there are two choices: Somfy ILT (smart motor) Z-Wave Interface used with high-end ILT motors ($$) great for serial control and networking motors, or ESI and Lagotek motor controller which controls standard motors.
I assume you want the second choice, but if you can afford the ILT setup it has a lot of options for grouping and intermediate positioning. For the second choice, you’d need a standard 4-Wire AC motor or standard 2-Wire DC Motor, like Somfy offers. Then just buy your controllers yourself.
I think you could even control some of the cellular shades with battery packs, by hacking together a DC motor controller and proper power supply. Let me know how big you want to go.
As this will be my first blinds test and they will honestly not be used a lot I’m going to go cheap and I really don’t want to pull power to those windows. If it works as I hope and Vera works well with them I’ll start looking at a little higher end stuff for the more public areas of the house.
So if I bought a blind like this at Home Depot, a Somfy DC motor (which I couldn’t find after a brief search) and one of these controllers?
Shady, you seem to be the guru on here. I’m going to be replacing some windows in my house, so I figured that would be the best time to run wires. The question is, what wires do I need to run?
I’m not sure which blnds would be easier to incorporate to my zwave system.
So I am also looking into turning my current cellular shades into some motorized ones. I am looking at the Somfy CT32 wirefree motor for a 59 by 115 size blind. I have 2 this size and I will be doing both. Is it an easy install? According to the size limit chart I found on automatedshadestore.com the motor will handle my shades, however will i need one or 2 motors? It does not say. I wanted to get your guys opinion on this. Now I am unsure what type of shades I have, and I would take pictures and post them, however I am in Afghan right now, so this is a project for when I get home. It seems pretty straightforward and simple to do, I am not getting into fully automating them with z wave as of right now, one step at a time here, just want to get this motorized for now. Any help will do.
Update: So after doing some digging around on 3dayblinds.com where I purchased these, I believe it is safe to say mine are Graber easy-up cordloop cellular shades.