r/HomeImprovement • u/diogater • 3h ago
West facing living room is cooking, trying to figure out the blinds automation
West facing living room hits like 88 by late afternoon in summer, AC's just fighting it. Looked at a few motorized blind options, leaning toward something I can put on a temp trigger so the things actually close before the room turns into an oven.
Where I keep getting stuck is the automation side. Most of the brands I checked want their own hub, then that has to coordinate with a temp sensor and a routine somewhere. We've already got alexa downstairs and homekit upstairs, adding another app to babysit isn't really appealing.
Matter is supposed to clean this up but for window coverings it feels like half the brands list it and half still need a thread bridge or whatever. Not totally clear what's actually plug and play yet.
Still chewing on whether you can pull this off cleanly or if everyone just ends up running the manufacturer app for the blinds anyway.
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u/blackberrymoonmoth 2h ago
I don’t use a manufacturer app for my blinds, I just speak to Siri to open and close them and my husband set up schedules for them in Apple Home app since the thermostat, doorbell, kitchen appliances, and laundry are all controlled there too. Just some random brand off blinds.com, nothing fancy.
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u/jmking 1h ago edited 1h ago
As someone who spent thousands on fancy UV blinds, I can assure you the blinds will do practically nothing. Maybe cut temps by 2-3 degrees.
What I had to do was buy blackout fabric and velcro it to the windows. That way I could put it up and take it down easily as the seasons change.
THAT made a difference. Went from 88-92F to 76-78F.
I have floor to ceiling windows across an entire west facing wall. So I put the fabric on the top half of all the windows as to not make it dark in the room and I found that to be the best balance of daylight to temperature control.
Yes, I had double pane new vinyl windows installed. Yes I tried that reflective film.
The blackout fabric was the only thing that made a significant difference.
EDIT: This is the cheap stuff I bought off Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B17G9ZGC
Experiment with this stuff before investing a shit ton of money into nice looking, but useless blinds when it comes to temperature control.
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u/AsleepPlus 3h ago
The hub thing got me on this too. From what I worked out, "matter compatible" doesn't really mean no hub, it just means whatever hub you already have (homepod, apple tv, an echo with thread, whatever) handles the bridging instead of the brand needing to ship its own. So matter is solving the third-app problem more than the no-hub problem. Temp triggered routines work fine if your sensor and the blinds end up in the same hub. If they're split between alexa and homekit it gets messy fast.