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Backgroud

We are in the market for some cordless blinds to cover multiple windows in our home. I would love to eventually have motorized blinds (tilt AND raise / lower) that can integrate with Home Assistant over some yet to be determined communication protocol. I envision these blinds using a rechargeable Li Ion cell and possibly a solar panel as a power source.

There are some factory-built motorized blinds or off the shelf retrofit kits, each has major downsides that make them impractical in my opinion.

I have a few questions for more seasoned DIYers about the feasibility of building what I'm looking for myself and I would love to hear other ideas or possible solutions.

Questions

  • It seems simple enough to motorize the tilt of these blinds, but what about their raising and lowering? I've tried researching how the raise / lower (tensioning) mechanism works in cordless blinds with no real luck. Short of taking some apart to inspect the mechanism, are there any ideas about whether it would be possible to add a motor to this system to automate this motion?

Thanks in advance for any input!

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  • Given enough time and money....practically anything is possible.
    – Steve Wellens
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 4:47
  • @SteveWellens, good thing i have an infinite supply of both..
    – jhthompson12
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 21:47

2 Answers 2

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Corded blinds would be easier to motorize.

Unless you're going to replicate Thing from the Addams Family at each window and have a robotic arm/hand grab the bottom of the cordless blind, you'll probably need to run cords (or cogged belts, or chains, or whatever level of overkill you like, but cords would do it, and you can easily buy blinds that already have them built in...) to motorize it.

If the drive system uses a clutch you can raise and lower with your hands by overcoming the clutch force. So the clutch would need to transmit enough force to move the blind, but not so much that the blind was not movable by hand.

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  • The problem im envisioning with retrofitting cordless blinds is the locking mechanism (i.e when you have to shift the cord to the left to lock / unlock the blinds after raising or lowering). This would require motorizing two operations. 1) raising and lowering the cord 2) locking the cord. Or once it's motorized would it not require a lock because the motor would resist unraveling?
    – jhthompson12
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 21:45
  • What I'm imagining for the cordless blinds is a motor that's hidden in the head rail just down-string of the tensioner that either reels in or reels out the cord to raise or lower the blinds. I feel like this could be doable and relatively simple
    – jhthompson12
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 21:47
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    @jhthompson12 you would not motorize that. You would reel up the cords onto a spool, and hold the spool. Motorization will preclude manual operation.
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 23:31
  • Thanks @Harper-ReinstateMonica, would it not require constant energy to the motor to prevent the cord from unspooling? I guess you would still need some kind of locking mechanism on the motor if you want to prevent constant power draw in this case. You could apply a similar spooling solution on "cordless" blinds too since there is an internal cord that facilitates the raising and lowering. Imagine a wheel with attached motor that sits just down-string of the existing spooling mechanism. The center cord wraps around this wheel once or twice and can pull the cord in either lift/lower direction
    – jhthompson12
    Commented Sep 7, 2022 at 0:40
  • The correct choice of stepper motor (for example) would have enough resistance with power off, while permitting that resistance to be overcome for manual operation. However, like most "roll your own to save money" projects the odds of saving money are somewhat dependent on how many things you didn't think of and end up re-engineering.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Sep 7, 2022 at 2:57
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I have Somfy motorized blinds. They are pricey. ~$500 per motor plus install. 1 motor per blind. I have them hardwired so no batteries and you can't see any wires. You can buy the somfy integration point for automation via Alexa. The noise of the motors working is quite screechy but it is a pretty nice feature for blinds that go really high up and wouldn't be accessible with cords. I have two different type of blinds honeycomb and roller shade so there is no tilt feature to mine.

I have 5 blinds that are motorized. After 10 years of use. 3 of them needed repairs ( they probably needed repairs must sooner I was just too cheap to bother ). The motors were fine it ended up being the strings or components in the blinds that didn't stand up. Cost me about $1500 to have the service guy in, remove them, take them to his shop, repair them and then re-install.

Be interested to see what you come up with if you roll your own system.

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  • Thanks for sharing! It's absurd how expensive motorized blind solutions are. Im also blown away at how limited the selection / capabilities are. What Somfy product do you have? their website doesnt provide much detail. Is it motorized in both dimensions (tilt and raise/lower)?
    – jhthompson12
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 21:35
  • I have "Cord Lift WireFree RTS 12VDC 1.2Amps" for my honeycomb blinds. I think the roller blinds are AC. No tilt action just lift or roll.
    – Fresh Codemonger
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 22:57
  • blindshadeparts.com/cord-lift-wirefree-cl32-rts-motor is the motor used in my dc blinds. The other ones needed to be AC for the weight of the roller blind.
    – Fresh Codemonger
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 23:05
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    Cheap, stupid, effective. Pick two. Motorized blinds are costly for reasons. If you absolutely insist on "cheap" and also "effective" then that obliges you to be Mr. Wizard technically.
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 23:33
  • I'm just trying to get some tactical input before buying a whole set of blinds. I'm in no rush to build a motorized solution and am relatively proficient with engineering / tech, so am enthused by the challenge. I imagine just playing around / iterating on one of the blinds until hopefully a solution Is found that can be deployed on the others.
    – jhthompson12
    Commented Sep 7, 2022 at 0:38

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