I’ve been working on this project for around 9 months now and I finally have a satisfactory solution. I was inspired by @jetpuf’s implimentation using the ESP8266.

My solution had to be a bit more creative in order to have low enough power consumption to run on batteries and allow for solar recharging (with a small and discrete solar panel). My solution was to add a central ‘hub’ which is always connected to WiFi which can communicate with the blinds. The blinds are generally ‘sleeping’ and only awake when they receive a command from the hub (over 915Mhz RF). The Hub consists of a WeMos D1 Mini with a RF shield (using RFM69W) and the blind controller uses a Moteino from lowpowerlab.com which also has a RFM69W. The moteino is seated in a custom circuit board that I created which handles the battery, solar charging, servo output and momentary switch input.

Here are the features:

Fully self-contained (no need to wire in power)

Able to move to 180 different set points

Standard “Close” position

Customizable “Open” position

Able to manually open/close blinds

Able to send commands to groups of blinds

Able to send command to all blinds regardless of group

Theoretical 8.9 Year battery life on 2200mAh LiPo (~20uA while sleeping)

Able to charge/top off battery quickly with small solar panel (using 5v 200mA panel)

Able to report battery voltage/percentage

Able to report charger status (Charging/Not Charging/Fully Charged/Error)

I am currently selling the custom Moteino shield on Tindie:



Videos:

Pictures:

Base Station:



Solar Panel Installation:Everything Installed in a Blind:Bottom of Gear Box (see momentary switch):Switch showing through original drawstring cutout:Final Moteino Shield design (populated board and bare PCB):Earlier prototypes (shows full assembly w/ Moteino):Reflowing some prototype PCBs:Reflowing a few Moteinos (I’m using 50% bought and 50% made):

SmartThings Interface:

Single Blind:



Group of Blinds:Base Station:

Code:

GitHub blebson/Automated-Blinds Contribute to blebson/Automated-Blinds development by creating an account on GitHub.

3D Printed Parts:

Parts List

1x WeMos D1 Mini

1x D1 Mini RFM69W Shield

1x 915Mhz Antenna

1x SMA to uFL adaptor

1x Moteino

1x Custom Moteino Shield

1x Momentary rocker switch

1x MG946R Servo

1x 5v 200mA solar panel

1x 2200 mAh LiPo battery

1x 3D Printed Gear Box

1x 3D Printed Gear set (2x gears)

1x 3D Printed Circuit Board Cover (inside of blind is sheet metal)

1x 3D Printed Solar Panel Case

1x 3D Printed Base Station Case

Special thanks to @jetpuf for allowing me to use and modify his gear box design and to the LowPowerLabs community for helping me with Moteino coding questions!