UK - Electric curtains and Roman roller blinds

[Traction Tim]

Hi,

I am presently running HS3 with Z-Wave, X10 and a RfxTRX433. I have been looking for motorised curtains and blinds that I can automate for a very long time, but have never found any that I could afford for the complete house.

Do any of the EU/UK users know of affordable quality kit ? Any "Don't even think of buying those", or "these look good" comments ?

The kit available in the UK appears to be Somfy, Silent Gliss, or the much cheaper kit sold by "y2shop" on Ebay. I would hazard a guess that the Ebay kit is noisy, as it appears to use steel wire rather than the flexible draw tape that some others use.

Any ideas ppl ? Any kit that I can purchase in Europe ?

[Pervez2602]

UK Curtains and roller blinds - another company.

Hi TractionTim,
I believe that a company called easiglide did or do make electric curtains although a web search only revealed this:-
http://remotecontrol-curtains.co.uk/...stallation.pdf
This was not what I had originally found!
Myself I do not have any electric curtains but would also like to see a few recent experiences with curtains.
There are some older posts on the board which are worth a look at if you have not seen them. There is also I believe the link I was looking for which shows how to automate easiglide curtains if they still exist.
Sorry not much info but hope it is of some help.
Peter

[b_weijenberg]

The RFXCOM plug-in with the RFXtrx433 supports:

-RAEX blind motors available in the UK at Becker Motors. Select a RAEX motor that can be controlled by the YR1326 remote.
http://www.beckermotors.co.uk/yr1326...tter-p-70.html
- It is planned to support Somfy soon.
- Forest blind and curtain motors are supported:
http://www.evans-textiles.com/products/track-systems/

[NicolaiL]

There are two halves to blinds/curtains:

1) the motor that drives the blind/curtain
2) the controller that controls the motor

For 1 you have several options and as you have pointed out Somfy and Silentgliss are obvious choices in the UK. However, even within these there are several options, including choice for 240V, 24V and 12V as well noise levels, although noise levels are to a degree driven by the voltage (higher voltage=less noise).

For the controller you have several choices such as a ZWave switch (Vitrum or Fibaro springs to mind for the UK) or you could go radio, such as Somfy RTS for their products. The Somfy RTS can be incorporated with the Somfy RTS485 controller for which there is now even a HS3 plug-in.

It also depends on how many blinds you want to control and whether you are controlling these individual or in groups (you will need to use relays if you are controlling more than one 240V blind from the same ZWave controller).

So, no easy answer, but I guess it comes down to how much you want to spend and how you want to control/wire the blinds.

As an example if you had a problem with pulling a power to a blind you could even go down the wirefree 12V option from Somfy which is based around a blind motor driven by a battery stick, but with the RTS option for control.

Tons of choice. If you know what your budget is it might be easier to help narrow down the solution?

[Traction Tim]

Thanks for the info guys. Time for some more reading

[ScottRennie]

It is planned to support Somfy soon.

Brilliant

Cheers, Scott

[Brooksyc]

Hi, realise this is a very old post, but those with Silent Gliss 5100 curtain rails after a number of years of trying with RFXCOM and vera, i have just moved to Homeseer. using the RFXCOM manager blinds T3 AC OK motor control, i can now control the curtains directly from Homeseer. Selecting blinds t3 and then pressing the supplied Silent Gliss remote, this gives you the Hex remote code. You then just set up a new device in Homeseer via the plug in and thats it. Open and close commands are reversed for me but not a big deal. Saves having to use Fibaro and the like relays to control the curtains.