We have a balcony at home for entertaining that gets the afternoon sun, which makes it uncomfortable in summer to sit at sunset due to glare and heat. Our solution has been to install outdoor blinds, and since we love gadgets, why not smart blinds?
I have recently been writing about turning my home into a smart home. A key thing I have learnt is the distinction between the products you introduce and how they connect within your home ecosystem. It’s one thing to buy a device and another to control it.
From a control perspective, you will either use a dedicated app from the smart home product’s brand and/or use Apple, Google, Amazon or Samsung’s assistants. To connect, there are several protocols, but most smart devices will use Wi-Fi, a dedicated hub, or Matter. Matter is a recent smart home standard that allows connecting devices from different brands without a dedicated hub from each brand.
I bring this up because I did not want extra apps or an additional hub to run the new blinds. As a result, we installed outdoor blinds from SmartWave, which support Matter connectivity.
Why I chose SmartWave blinds
SmartWave sells all sorts of blinds and shades, and to order, you pick your type, in our case, an outdoor blind. You then select a colour, the dimensions you need, the type of motor, which side you want the motor (we discovered it made no difference to our blinds), and whether the blinds roll down from the front or rear of the roll.
Beyond that, you can order a remote when you don’t want to use your phone or voice to raise or lower the blinds via your smart home. Other options include solar panels and 240-volt power supplies for those who don’t want to have to recharge the internal battery periodically.
From all the customisable options available, we chose SmartWave’s motorised blinds specifically designed for outdoor use. It costs US$313 (roughly AU$480), which comes with a five-year warranty.
Installing and using the smart blinds
After we pressed buy, we waited about two weeks, and a nearly three-metre box arrived from China. With my son’s help and my wife’s precise directions, we installed brackets to which the preassembled blinds attach.
A long USB-C cable is supplied for charging the battery built into the blind. Once charged, we turned on the blind, and my smartphone immediately showed a new Matter device available to connect to. We scanned the matter QR code accompanying the blind, which is also labelled on the blind out of sight, and a few keystrokes later, we were able to raise and lower our blinds by voice or app, in our case, via the Google Assistant.
We could also have used Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, or Samsung SmartThings. As long as you get your measurements right, anyone with basic home maintenance experience could install these blinds.
One of the things that excites me (the geek that I am) is what automations will be possible in the future. Today, I can ask my Google Assistant to lower the blinds to 50%.
In some control apps, but not Google yet, you can set an automation: if the observed wind speed is above a certain level, close the blinds. I can even imagine a conversation with an AI assistant asking me if I would like the blinds lowered when I have scheduled guests to come over for lunch.
My takeaway from this experience is that the blind is of excellent quality, was easy to order, arrived quickly and easily connected to my smart home setup. We chose a see-through material that lets you still enjoy the view while blocking the afternoon sun, so it is now comfortable to sit outside without being blinded by the sun.
The post Blinded by the sun no more: Why I bought smart blinds appeared first on GadgetGuy.
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