Dear Community,
Does anyone know some battery powered window shades that can work without a cloud and can be controlled from openHab?
Hunter Douglas PowerView also known as Luxaflex.
I just had another thread about blinds where someone pointed out that the Bali Zwave blinds worked well and were less expensive than the Hunter Douglas. Somfy also got some discussion in that thread.
I haven’t tried either yet, got distracted by work and security cameras.
Filter:
Exposes: cover, battery
I have Bali battery powered z-wave blinds
They work well, and are responsive. They are not silent but not annoying.
I have several extra Lutron Pico remotes and a Lutron Casata pro hub. The Pico remotes work well as an on wall remote.
I have a Bali PREMIUM remote. It’s a worthless piece of crap
I have a z-wave usb stick and use the z-wave binding
The bali batteries are lithium, rechargeable, and last about 8 months a charge.
IKEA Fyrtur works fine with zigbee binding.
1 Like
Thank you all for your suggestions.
I recently installed some bali battery blinds. I use a husbzb z-wave stick. The z-wave binding finds the blinds and identifies them as Somfy z-wave devices. Four channels are exposed, switch, rollershutter, dimmer(deprecated), and battery level. The blinds work as expected, although I haven’t figured out what the switch channel does. I have rules set up to raise and lower the blinds using data from the astro binding for logic decisions.
@smitopher @DaveG Do you have cellular blinds or roller blinds? I’m considering ordering some before the Bali sale on Costco ends on April 30.
Roller blinds appear to be the cheapest, whereas double-cell cellular blinds are the most expensive and best at keeping heat in/out. I feel like I should just bite the bullet and get the double-cells, but it’s quite a jump in price.
Also, are the battery chargers a proprietary connector? I’m thinking I should get two, so that I have a backup if one dies.
I bought cellular blinds. I didn’t get the rechargeable ones. Some how I missed that option. On mine, the battery pack connector is a micro usb connection. I suspect the charger uses the same.
1 Like
Mine are “shear shades”. I can’t speak to their insulating properties.
My sisters and nieces put a LOT of effort into making sure I got the right ones.
I’m happy with mine.
I have the Bali battery
1 Like
I like the look of the Shear Shades. The batteries are fine but I kinda wish I had taken the time, effort, and cost to have them powered by mains. It would of been a big project.
This is a Bali light filtering roller shade on a gray morning:
Battery Pack (up with Command Strips):
I opted for the AA battery system. Battery status after 6 months, so I’m guessing a year. Probably not the most environmentally friendly, but cost was more efficient (all in USD$1700 for 5 blinds).
1 Like
Have 6 Somfy battery operated blinds (Li-ion). Got them in May/June timeframe last year and they’re controlled thru OH and RFXTRX. They range in size from 1.8m wide to 2.7m wide.
They are opened and closed pretty much every day and i charged them for the 1st time just last week. That was a bit of a pain, have only 1 charger but 6 blinds. Took about 2 hrs per blind to charge, so almost a full day to do them all. At least its done now. Plan on buying 2 more chargers (Charger ) so i can do 3 at a time
Thanks for the info, everyone. I went with the double-cell cellular shades with light-filtering fabric, and included two chargers.
What strategies/rules are people using to automate? This seems promising.