A smart thermostat won’t lower your summer energy bill, but this smart device will
Cooling your home can be expensive, even with a modern, efficient air conditioning system. If you want to save money, you first need to prevent your home from getting too hot.
This is exactly what smart blinds do so well.
Smart blinds are what your home is missing
Smart blinds are nothing more than motorized window coverings that can be automated using a smart home platform like Home Assistant or proprietary systems from Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. At their most basic level, they allow you to raise and lower blinds with the touch of a button or by voice command.
This can have all kinds of benefits, from helping you wake up in the morning to providing privacy from neighbors at night. Automations can raise and lower the shades for you, or you can use a smart speaker or smartphone to do it manually. Many smart blinds also come with a dedicated remote control or buttons on the unit.
Ben Lovejoy / How to Geek
Blinds can be grouped like other smart home devices. If you have multiple windows in your living room and you correctly install your blinds on your platform of choice, issuing a simple command such as “close living room blinds” should close all affected blinds.
But blinds aren’t just a way to control light or visibility; they are also one of the best ways to protect your home from the sun. While you may want to maximize the amount of sunlight entering certain areas in winter to get some free heating, the opposite is true in summer. This is especially true for rooms that receive full midday and afternoon sun.
How Automating Window Coverings Can Save You Money
Blocking the sun reduces the “greenhouse effect” that occurs inside your home by blocking as much UV light as possible. For certain rooms, blinds are not only essential to avoid excessive heating but also to allow you to spend time there during the hottest hours of the day.
With a smart home, you can automate this process using a number of data points. The easiest way is to lower the blinds during the hottest times of the day. Where I live, that’s a large chunk of time between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. during the warmer months.
But not all days are sunny and warm, and using a simple time frame doesn’t always make sense. In this case, you can be a little more specific and use external sources (like weather forecasts) or internal sensor readings (mainly room temperature) – or a combination of both – to intelligently lower the shades.
Ben Lovejoy / How to Geek
How you do this depends entirely on your smart home platform of choice. Home Assistant offers many weather plugins that you can use in your automations, while any alternative platform should allow simple temperature-based automations.
You can even set up an automation to open the blinds again provided that certain conditions are met, such as the UV index or the ambient temperature below a certain threshold. Part of the “fun” of automating your smart home is finding a method that works for you.
The same trick can also work in winter to preserve heat, although curtains are generally considered better insulators. Luckily, with a gadget like the SwitchBot Curtain robot, you can automate them too.
- Brand
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SwitchBot
- Dimensions
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9.45 x 2.36 x 2.36 inches
The SwitchBot Curtain Rod 3 automates the simple task of opening and closing your curtain via SwitchBot’s dedicated app. The smart device can be activated virtually anywhere, allowing you to regulate your home environment to reduce energy costs.
Finding the right blinds can be a challenge
Speaking from experience, finding the right blinds can be quite a journey. I have been looking for the “perfect” blinds for a long time, and my quest so far has not been successful. That said, I have learned a lot over the past few years of casual hunting.
SmartWings are often cited as being one of the best choices on the market (but they are not available where I live). They’re more affordable than some of the more expensive options, while still enjoying a good reputation for quality at this price point. Another option is Hunter Douglas (also sold as Luxaflex in many other parts of the world), which comes in a higher price range.
Lutron Caséta makes the blinds you choose when money is no object. At the other end of the price spectrum, IKEA used to offer the Fyrtur range of motorized smart blinds (pictured below), but they disappeared from sale a few years ago and have yet to reappear.
If you’re feeling brave and want budget-friendly, custom-made smart blinds, there’s no shortage of manufacturers offering custom window coverings on marketplaces like AliExpress and Alibaba. I wouldn’t even consider them if it weren’t for the many discussions on Reddit and happy customers that are pushing me to seriously consider it as an option.
Depending on what you’re looking for, you may have a choice of power options. Many use a simple rechargeable battery that must be removed and recharged. Solar charging is also an option on certain models, via a solar panel glued to the window. It’s usually only the high-end options that offer a direct connection to the mains (which is probably more hassle than it’s worth for most people anyway).
Converting your dumb blinds is also an option
If you already have blinds installed, you may be able to retrofit them with a smart, motorized system. Products like the SwitchBot Blind Tilt ($70) use Bluetooth or Matter to let you raise, lower, and tilt compatible blinds, and they also come with a solar panel and battery. The Aqara Roller Shade Driver E1 ($120) is another option that uses Zigbee.
The vast majority of smart blinds I came across during my research had offline control, meaning they connect via Bluetooth, a mesh network like Zigbee, or plain old Wi-Fi.
Make sure to use a local smart home platform like Home Assistant so you don’t rely on the internet for local operations.
