Help Needed: Best Approach for Automating Window Blinds with openHAB?

Setup, Configuration and Use Migration
1

Hello all,

I’m a new user of openHAB and trying to find the most suitable method of automating my window blinds. I have a combination of Zigbee and Wi-Fi-connected blinds and would appreciate if I could control them via openHAB. My primary needs are:

Compatibility – I would like to ensure the installation is working fine with openHAB. Are there any special bindings or devices that function best?

Automation – I’d like to create sunrise/sunset schedules and maybe connect them to my thermostat to enhance energy efficiency.

Voice Control – I possess Alexa and Google Assistant. How do I most easily integrate voice commands?

I value any experience, advice, or feedback from those who have implemented something like this.

Also, if there’s a way to visualize automation data in a dashboard, would using Power BI be a good option? I’m already exploring some Power BI tutorials, but I’m unsure how well it integrates with openHAB for tracking automation performance.

Looking forward to your suggestions!
Thanks in advance!

2

As far as zigbee blinds you can use the zigbee binding from OH or use zigbee2mqtt and use the MQTT binding in OH.

For wifi blinds you will need the binding for the specific brand of blinds you have, assuming that binding exists, I don’t know any other way to use wifi connected blinds.

To control the blinds based on other factors such as a thermostat, you must have the thermostat also installed in OH and then you create rules. For using sunrise sunset you have to install the astro binding.

3

Post any specific questions / config here if you get stuck.

4

Most people here use Grafana. I’m not familiar with Power BI but it may be possible? Basically data can be persisted into a database (e.g. InfluxDB, Timescale, MySQL, RRD4J, etc). What you do from that database is entirely up to you and it is outside openhab. So if Power BI can read the database, then you can use it.

Displaying the data on openhab’s web interface is done the same way any external web source is displayed. Someone else might be able to provide examples or you can search here too.

5

These are the sunrise/sunset rules that I use for my blinds. Each of the blind items is a member of the gBlinds group.

//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Open blinds at sunrise plus 30 minutes
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
rule OpenBlindsRule
when Channel "astro:sun:localPlus30:rise#event" triggered END 
then logInfo("OpenBlindsRule", "Opening blinds @ sunrise")
	 gBlinds.sendCommand(ON)
end

//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Close blinds at sunset
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
rule CloseBlindsRule
when Channel "astro:sun:local:set#event" triggered START 
then logInfo("CloseBlindsRule", "Closing blinds at sunset")
	 gBlinds.sendCommand(OFF)
end

HTH
Jim

6

As an alternative to the voice control method above, you can consider the Matter binding. Instead of using the Google/Amazon skills and the cloud connector, you expose the Items you want to control through the Matter bridge in the binding. Then Google and Amazon Alexa Matter controllers can access your devices via voice.

This is in beta, so expect issues and a learning curve. You’ll definitely hit some issues. But this is probably the better way to go in the long term as Matter is gathering momentum for home automation. It may or may not be worthwhile for you in the short term.