I’m looking for a good, stable solution to control venetian blinds with OH.
These would be my requirements:
automatization via OH-rules (up/down, tilt angle (!) ), dependent on weather, time, etc.
manual override via physical switches (each blind get’s a switch)
stable and hassle-free everyday use
wireless or wired: both would be ok, as long as it works
I’m not too concerned about the software-side of my project. I’ve played around a bit with OH in combination with some zigbee and wifi-devices (lights and power outlets), which worked out pretty good.
For the hardware-side, I just don’t know where to begin. I’ve read a ton about different actuators for roller shutters and blinds (fibaro, shelly mostly) - and they all don’t seem to work flawlessly.
The (18) blinds will be integrated in a new house - so wired connections would be possible.
My electrician made me a good offer for a Bticino-System to control the blinds (and lights).
Anybody knows how good the control of venetian blinds works with the bticino-binding? Is it possible to control the tilit-angle of the blinds?
Thanks in advance,
August
MDAR
(Stuart Hanlon, UK importer of Velbus hardware)
2
Hello August.
Is it ‘just’ the blinds you want to control in your home, or are you having more work done?
Obviously, I would recommend the Velbus VMB2BLE as a two channel controller, per blind. (1 channel for tilt, the other for drop)
Equally, a 4 channel relay pack, running from an ESP01 via MQTT would work too.
An expansion of this concept.
Adding local buttons would be a challenge, but not impossible.
A 4 relay ESP01 board would probably use the RS232 method to control the relays, so in theory you’d have the ability to use the 2 GPIO pins to detect buttons.
As always, these are just my thoughts, I’m sure there are hundreds of other options.
thank you for your quick reply!
I will take a look at the velbus system - altough have to say that I’d prefer a more of-the-shelf-solution for my problem…
What I liked about the shelly-concept is, that it also works offline - like a normal hardware button, when there is no connection or some part of the home automation system fails.
I understand, that that’s also true for other actuators that hide behind a wall-switch, like the homematic HmIP-BBL for example (Please correct me if I’m wrong).
To shorten this: I would prefer a solution, which allows me to open the blinds individually/manually in case of a system-fail.
Is anybody actually running a system like this?
Do you have hardware buttons integrated to run the blinds manually? Can you control the tilt angle via OH (percentage) and manually by hardware button? That would be good news!
MDAR
(Stuart Hanlon, UK importer of Velbus hardware)
6
I haven’t had a single “system” failure, in any of the installations, in the 9 years that I’ve been working with Velbus, but I guess there could always come a time…
With a ZWave based system, you can make a ZWave remote directly talk to the blind actuator rather than through OH … but frankly, I haven’t had the need a single time in 4 years.
I’m glad I saved my money on switches. Your efforts are better invested into getting OH more resilient.
(FWIW, check out this forthcoming openHABian feature).
