DIY: Voice activated smart shades!
So, like all my projects, they start with an idea and morph into a vision. A vision I find myself having a hard time shaking. This vision is simple, I wanted to have automated blinds in the living room without spending enormous amounts of money on niche products. Why you may ask? The current blinds I have let in a lot of light, and I would prefer to be able to block that light in certain instances, such as to watch a movie, and so, new shades were needed. Additionally, I have very large windows and so the act of manually opening and closing shades day in and day out is tedious and a waste of time. Initial research showed that to purchase “smart” blinds ranged from 400–1500 dollars for a single window! Feel free to price your own blinds out here to get some sticker shock! In this modern day of ubiquitous technology there surely has to be a way to do this cheaper. I will spare you from all the ways that did not work and focus on a clean implementation of the project that requires no coding allowing everyone to employ it in their lives with relative ease. Before we dive into this journey, I feel obliged to share the desired before and after photo and a video of it working to prevent unnecessary scrolling for those who just want the end result.
Now that we have a clear idea of what the end goal is let’s break this article down into 2 clear categories. First we will set up the hardware part leaving you with blinds controllable with a RF remote, a stopping place in itself. Then secondly we will tackle the software (with no coding required and just simple app’s and settings to play with) in order to allow you to control the blinds not only with a phone, computer, timer, or tablet, but also with your own voice. Before we get into the technical steps, for those who want to see the cost before reading this highly detailed setup guide, let’s do a quick break down and then we will go into specifics later on in the article, including how it may be even less for you. Links to the products can be found in the build list here, but again more links and details will be provided throughout the guide while also highlighting other options.
Some of the prices you see are variable in regards that there are many different options that result in an overall lower or higher cost. My goal is to present all of the options to you, allowing for you to make the best decision that fits you and your goals. I hope that I am able to articulate all of my research into a simple enough guide to help bring a fun project to everyone's home.
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A big point to take away from this cost is that it includes everything to make this system work and run well. Compared to the Lutron shades that when priced out for the same project reached a total of $3000 dollars with a single motorized blind pricing out at around $700. Hilarious enough it does not even include free shipping at this cost where as the blinds we will go with do!
From here on out I will be stepping through the process of getting this system built and optimized for your home. It is going to be a very detailed guide with information, instructions and pictures. I am sure that a few of you out there are the tl;dr (Too long; didn’t read) type and I can empathize with that, but today I want to present all of the information in a detailed manor in order to allow you to make a fully educated and informed decision. Furthermore, allowing you to set it up in your home with minimal stress and confusion. Thats the way I would like it if I fell on to this article and wanted to do something like this. I want to rid any ambiguity and make it so that you do not need to search for other information in order to get the whole story. I do also plan to update the article based on feedback in the comments to make this as clear and fool proof as possible. Iteration is key to me so I do look forward to that, but for now let’s go ahead and get started with this super fun project.
Let’s now start with part one and walk through the setting up and retro fitting the old blind with the new motorized and remote controlled version! Here we can see the initial blind setup.
Having to raise, lower and adjust these on a daily basis is a huge pain. Partly due to the weight of this type of blind. Let alone there being four of them. Each windows inside dimensions are 58.5 inches across and 88 inches tall, part of the reason for their large blind price. Now, for the rest of this hardware walk through we will focus on this single window.
What we apply to this window can be extrapolated and adjusted to any window opening of your choice. Now that we are focused on this single window let’s talk about the roller shades we will procure for it and the other available choices. This project went with these blinds that covered the span of 47–69 inches wide. They are part of the Reminiscent Blackout series that comes in a variety of colors, the material is that of a white vinyl on one side and your color choice on the other. I will say they do look quite good for being just vinyl. Again the key thing here was getting shades that blocked out all the light. If one wants to upgrade their material to more of a fabric type then I would recommend the Splendor Blackout series which comes at a modest price increase. I actually used this polyester type for a automated shade in the bedroom and it turned out quite well! For our current window with an inner size of 58.5 inches across and 88 inches high; measured like so:
We will be ordering the blinds with the same dimensions (or as close as you can on Amazon). The company will call you or email you after the order for exact measurements and they will take into account the necessary adjustments in order for it to fit the window properly. So now that we have the blinds ordered let’s gather the rest of the hardware to make this a remote controlled blackout shade! We will be replacing the support bar that the blind comes with in order for it to successfully house the motor. You will need to go to the local hardware store and pick up 1–1/4 in. EMT conduit like this. It comes in 10 ft lengths and will have to be cut down to your exact shade width. I also recommend that you roll the tube on the ground before purchasing in order to make sure the tube is perfectly straight. You want it to roll on the ground effortlessly with no weird movements. Let’s go over how I remove the old tube and cut the new tube to size and then we will move to the the motor.
First we need to remove the old tube. To do this simply unroll the shade and when you get to the end keep unrolling against the force of the glue. Next you need to mark on the tube where we want to cut, I found this setup to be the most efficient way to mark this spot.
With the pole done we can now move to adding the motor. We will be using this 25mm Motor Kit & Remote Controller to ensure enough power and torque for efficient use. It should be noted that you will need to purchase this power adapter in order to run the motor.
We will start by trimming the motor to be able to fit inside of the pole. First let’s fit the non motor side fitting, I found that trimming the plastic tabs on an angle with cutting pliers like in the pictures below was enough to get it into the pole.
Then using a block and depressing the spring, I hammered the fitting into the pole. You may need to trim out some of the plastic with an X-ACTO knife in order to get the end all the way in. The end result should look like this:
Now onto fitting the motor. It should be mentioned that a better fit can be achieved by 3D printing parts, but that costs additional money so I avoided it. I will show you how I retro fitted it to work with what I had. First I cut the small guide bumps off on the side with the motor power cord with the X-ACTO knife. Then I cut the guide bumps off on the opposite side.
We also need to trim the end of the motor rubber down to its metal so it can fit in the tube. Again this was done with an X-ACTO knife. Ending up with the motor fitting looking like so:
Then we push the motor into into the tube getting us a final result like so:
Now that we have the motor fit inside the tube its time to add our shade to our retro fitted tube. To do this we will be using this double sided carpet tape to attach the shade to the pole. Be sure to use the natural manufacturing line in the pole to guide your tape placement and then carefully wrap the tape around. Like so:
Once the tape is perfectly in place, I laid it down on the shade and lined it up. The outer tape cover was then removed, carefully the blind was lined up with that same manufacturing line as mentioned before and well attached to the tape. To completely attach the blind to the pole I rolled it to attach the the remainder of the blind.
This step is very important to make sure the blind goes perfectly up and down. Be sure to be 100 percent happy with the look and result before moving on. Otherwise the blind will go up and down on an major angle. Now roll up the shade and let’s preform a test fit to make sure everything is going to fit well.
With the test fit looking promising its time to mount it. I choose to put the motor mount on the right side because its the closest to that electrical outlet. I also moved the mounts a little forward to make sure when rolling down they did not snag on the window openers. Here is what the final mounted blind looked like before the final modifications:
Connecting the power cords like so:
Now hook up your blinds and run a quick test! Be sure to just move them in a small direction and stop them. We will be programming them to fit your window next. If your blinds do not move try to pair the remote to the blinds (this can be found in the provided motor product instructions) and make sure you do not have your wire connection backwards (check photo above). Also if your blinds move in the wrong direction be sure to change the motor rotation direction (this can be found in the provided motor product instructions).
Now let’s calibrate the blinds for your window. The detailed instructions to do this can be found in the provided motor product instructions and consists of setting the lower limit and the upper limit of the blind. I found the instructions very easy and well articulated. For now I will avoid writing them all here. If you run into problems with the blinds telescoping check out this article for a solution. I ended up using painters tape on the blinds that did not behave well. If you have any questions or find something confusing, feel free to leave a comment and I will help out and update the article to reduce overall confusion.
It should be noted that I linked one remote to control all 4 blinds in the room. Meaning they will all raise at the same time with a single command. I may change this in the future and break them into subsets, but for now they are all working off a single remote. Information on how to do this can be found in the provided motor product instructions.
Next, I decided to mount the old valance in order to cover the blind roll. This was done with a metal bracket and some velcro.
Last step is to tidy the cord up. I did this using some hot glue and I think it turned out well. Its a more cost efficient solution than using expensive electrical guide rails, but I am sure others may like that route as well. Let’s take a look at the final hardware product!
Phew, for those of you still with me; Thanks! I know its been a lot of information so far and I would be lying if I said it was over. I really just want to provide the resource I would have loved to find in attempting this project. Let’s move on to part two and get our software up and running so we can tell Alexa to open those blinds!
I would say our first logical step to getting the blinds to be automated and the solution for those of you who want to stop at phone, schedule, computer, timer, or tablet controller is to acquire a new version of the RM Pro here. This device is great because it can control RF (Radio Frequency) devices on the 433 MHz frequency band and also control IR devices with its IR blaster. So you can control RF outlets, RF Fans, RF AC units and IR control of things like TV’s, media boxes and other fun IR devices like the Apple TV. We, however, are going to focus on just controlling the blinds here, so let’s go! Setup the device and follow the supplied instructions to connect it to your 2.4 GHz wifi as it does not work on 5 GHz wifi. I find it best to put all smart devices on the 2.4 GHz network since that band is better at penetrating walls and other obstacles and we do not need to care about speed with smart devices. Once connected let’s go ahead and download the app we will be using to control the blinds. Just an FYI, I have tried all various implementations and the one I will layout for you is by far the best. If you want more specifics on reasoning feel free to drop a comment. The app you need to download to control the blinds is called e-control and can be downloaded for iOS and Android here. Just a heads up that we will be installing this on an android media box shortly in order to leverage Alexa voice capabilities. So you do not have to put the app on your phone or tablet unless you want manual control of the blinds that way as well. No matter the device you use the following setup will be the same.
Let’s start with the media box. I decided to go with this android box mainly because it was the least expensive. It has a lot of other perks as well, but I will let you discover those on your own. Set up for the android box should be fairly straight forward. If you encounter any problems just let me know in the comments. Once you have the box up its time to download the e-control app. You can find it by searching for it in the google play store. With that down load we can go into setting up the blinds in the e-control app.
With the e-control app ready to go and the RM Pro set up we can begin. Make sure you first load your RM Pro device into the app. Upon doing that select add a new remote that is the user defined type. Create a up, down and stop button like so:
Now that we have defined our virtual remote its time to program each command. Click on each button and follow the instructions on the screen.
Once we have the blinds set up in the e-control app we need to download a plugin in order to have the blinds talk with Alexa. Despite what the company claims about Alexa capability with the RM Pro it really only works with TV commands and after many emails they have no interest in supporting other devices. So we are going to leverage a third party application called RM Plugin and this is going to leverage voice commands of our RM Pro devices by using the Phillps hues api. This does have a downside, but, as we will see soon there is a fix that will abstract this problem away! So now let’s set up the RM Plugin. In the e-control app we need to go to settings and then share. When there click on the “Share to other phones in WLAN option”. With this running go over to the general settings page of the RM Plug in app and choose “Force import data from eControl”
While in the RM plugin app be sure to enable the Alexa bridge option on the main menu by clicking “Alexa Bridge” and selecting “Enable Alexa Bridge”. Then select lower on the list the “Alexa Device List” option. Add an Alexa device and map the blinds close command from the “Select an existing code” to the on command and do the opposite for the off command.
With the plug in setup our last step is just integrating the commands with Alexa. I will assume you have your Alexa setup for these instructions, but again if you have any questions drop them below. In the Alexa interface area add the Broadlink e-control skill. Once that skill is added click discover devices and then you will see your blind controls show up. To invoke the commands you can say things like “Alexa, turn on the shades” to close them or “Alexa, turn off the shades” to open them. Its annoying and unintuitive so let’s make it better. Amazon just recently released routines which allow you to create a custom name and action scheme. With this we can now program Alexa to open the blinds when hearing “Alexa, open the blinds”. Even better with this you can set up commands like “Alexa, good morning” which can incorporate the blinds going up, perhaps the thermostat changing and music or news to start playing. Regardless the actions you can abstract the awkwardness of the original commands to open the blinds.
Before we wrap this all up let’s take a look at the opening and closing of the blinds via voice command.
I want to thank everyone who made it this far. I really do hope you enjoyed this read! As someone who loves to read the steps for a project for fun I hope I was able to create that experience for you and for those who plan to take on the project. Feel free to leave a comment below if you get stuck!
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