Check the blinds with Alexa and Google Home – Home Automation Full
Within this page you will finally find out how to control the shutters with Alexa and Google Home. Continuing to read discover in detail the relationship between automation and the blinds, what to buy to make the smart electric shutters and how you can be actually control through your voice, or your smartphone.
The relationship between home automation and smart shutters
Up to no more than fifteen years ago, owning an electric shutter represented the ultimate in comfort under domestic shutters.
No one could ever possibly imagine, so long ago that today would be even possible to control their blinds extremely advanced and simple voice commands home automation systems.
The automation of the shutters is the trend of the moment when it comes to interior design and exterior, especially when you consider the spread like wildfire tools such as screen readers produced by industry leading companies, such as Amazon, Google and Apple, which have greatly facilitated the domestic sight of all those who have chosen to believe in their creations.
Before considering the merits of the motors for electric blinds and smart switches to buy, it is appropriate to briefly explain what the real meaning of home automation, or home automation.
This branch of science allows you to control several instruments and electronic devices in your home, simply using a remote control or voice commands. This solution has achieved significant popularity in recent years, which is why our experts have made automation systems tailored to our shutters, taking advantage of the software on two of the most used smart devices in the world, Alexa and Google Home .
This however, is a feature article on DIY home automation that sets the groundwork for all the fans who have the desire to achieve self-made home automation systems.
Engines for electric shutters
At a time when you choose an electric shutter, one of the characteristics which must rely on the increased attention is the choice of the motor which drives the mechanism that winds and unwinds the domestic damper.
In fact, when you want to control the shutters with tools like Alexa and Google Home, one can not but take into account the fact that the specific elements need to be able to take advantage of the popular digital assistants in the world.
However, before you choose, it’s not a bad idea to take a look on the net before making their choice, looking at the reviews of customers: hereinafter, in fact, we will present two of the most popular electric motors for roller shutters on the market today .
RolSmart M
A first example, in such a case, it might be RolSmart M, a tubular motor completely particularly demanded in the market and efficient electrical under every point of view, by the precision resistor.
The wired tubular motor for roller shutters has a shaft diameter of 50 mm of RolSmart series presents some features particularly interesting, as the smooth stop, the intelligent measurement of the strength and the soft brake, capable of ensuring a delicate operation, although l ‘ electric drive requires at least one end stop.
Thanks to this product you can make an intelligent force measurement, so as to exploit to the maximum the blind protection of the system, the desired position can be set via the assembly cable and the presence of a particularly silent soft brake, allows to applying each individual feature described in a modern home automation system, including those with speech automation.
Electric motor Sommer
The other electric motor for roller shutters particularly appreciated by the community of the web, however, is produced by Sommer: it is always of a tubular-shaped device, which offers greater guarantees from the point of view of the overheating and the resistance to high temperatures, since nobody has ever found one of the pipe burst that contains the movement system, especially in light of the fact that the tubular motors made by this company are durable and powerful.
All valve engines have mechanical stops, which makes them perfect for quick installation and retrofitting of your shutters.
Among the advantages of this product, it is also possible to note a remarkable smoothness and long duration, having regard to the options that allow you to save speed and maintain an extreme silence in the moment in which it operates with this electric motor, the high degree of compatibility, which makes the electric motor Sommer applicable to more than 90% of modern systems, and finally extreme adaptability with regard to the installation of a different roller shutter or other type of curtains, such as awnings.
Best electric motors for roller shutters
Within the following ranking it is possible to identify at a glance the best electric motors for blinds bought on Amazon Italy:
Switches smart to buy
Once it is possible to proceed to the next step, the electric motor, which is installed: the purchase of a smart switch to control the shutters with his own voice.
As previously mentioned, we wrote a very thorough guide on the best to buy it, but you scroll below to see which ones specifically made for the shutters: Sonoff and Shelly.
Wi-Fi switch Sonoff
As regards the automation under the control of the shutters, the first actually to have brought to light was ITEAD, which has realized the Wi-Fi switch Sonoff: this smart device has to say the least flooded the market, having regard to the its extremely competitive price (we are talking about a sum less than ten Euros) and the ability to control any electronic and electrical instance of your home thanks to the revolutionary app, eWeLink.
In the modern world, we often hear about the IoT (Internet of Things), and home automation it is one of the outstanding performances: it is the way all of our devices and devices will be networked to provide users with complete control on their home equipment.
However, before ITEAD no one had tried to create a single system capable of controlling every single instance of your home, including the house shutters!
Over the years, as you might guess, were released several versions of this extraordinary software, although you can easily list the common features with each release, ie the power on and power off of devices, the ability to trace a path that the device must follow a proper routine, and receive timely feedback device status that the application is controlling, all without neglecting safety and privacy at all necessary to manage an entire home, thanks to sophisticated algorithms security and encryption of passwords for access to the switch Wi-Fi.
In addition, you can set the timer for each transaction, eliminating the possibility of forgetting the blinds raised on a rainy evening! Knowing this, it is possible to more easily understand what are the basic functions of the application eWeLink, ie remote control, programming and remote control, sharing of these features with other devices in the head to the same user, management of groups of instances (for example, all the shutters of their homes at the same time) and the smart choice system, with the latest updates has been automated.
This is the complete review of Sonoff 10A DIY, or you can discover the offer of the day on Amazon:
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Shelly One
One of the most interesting smart switches currently on the market are those targati Shelly.
The model 1, the extremely small size and does not require any kind of modification to the original container, which is necessary if you choose to opt for Sonoff Basic.
This system presents an app particularly intuitive, both for iPhone and for Android, able to set each element of their home with an ease out of the ordinary, being able to operate even in the Cloud. This behaves the same way as any other product of the Google Home on the market series: in practice, the colleagues, open the application, you connect to Shelly through its SSID (Service Set Identifier) broadcast and enter your personal information via Wifi.
The app is not only intuitive, but also has an attractive design, has many options for televisions, electronic devices, rooms and even, especially, shutters; Also, you can enable the voice control function, so you can run any command simply telling the system what to do. Finally, it offers the possibility to control the device using its local network or by connecting it to the cloud of Shelly.
They have well-documented REST API, so even if the integration with the home server is not available, it should not be difficult to create one. Shelly 2, produced by the same company, appears to be the worthy successor to Shelly 1, considering that this product is designed to fit in your unit and allow remote control via Wi-Fi, your light switch through your phone or the ‘hub home automation, as well as work with Alexa and Google Home.
Anyone who has tried Shelly 1, recognizes that the second version is even more powerful than the first, with the ability to simultaneously manage different instances, by grouping function and smart choice, implemented during the review of the first version of Shelly One.
This allows you to control two lights (the Shelly 1 is for a light) and is innovative in that it can substantially connect the output from the switch (which normally goes to your light) to Shelly so that your light switch functions normally. Shelly does not care if this line is turned on or not, simply it detects the change of state, which will result in the triggering of a switching process by the Wi-Fi switch.
This means you can use your phone to turn on or turn off the light and still use the switch on the wall to do the same. The switch behaves as a two or three-way switch in which it is possible to exploit it in both ways to change the light from on to off.
Even better, if you connect the end of a two- or three-way circuit (or multi-way), all switches associated with light will work as expected. This is indeed a turning point in being able to automate the lights without changing all the light switches and do it at a good price.
Shelly 2 also supports MQTT, which means that the more technical types can integrate with any home automation hub. In addition, it is possible to exploit systems that allow a greater protection of their sensitive data and sharing between smart devices with the same user at the head, thus avoiding having to rely on a service in the Cloud.
List of useful voice commands
The moment you have highlighted the enormous potential of some electric motors for roller shutters and the latest Wi-Fi switches, to simplify every aspect of their lives, it is natural to continue using voice commands and what are the opportunities you can leverage to make performing the most of your digital assistant.
You can start a conversation with him / her by simply saying “OK, Google” or “Hey, Alexa,” and this interaction initiation system is also functional on smartphones.
For example, you could say, “Hey, Google, turn on the light,” then the system might ask “What?”, And you could indicating a specific, or choosing the option to turn on all the lights of the interior. In fact, thanks to their sophisticated programming, virtual assistants fully understand the context and provide output in the response (or in this case, the operation) better than what has been said.
In particular, since the middle of last year, Google has added a feature called “Conversations continue”: in short, after pronouncing a command to a tool that mounts Google Home, this will not only complete the action, but will wait of another command.
At the same time, Alexa introduced the related commands function between them, such as “Alexa, lowers all the shutters of the balcony and turn off the light.”
For the more experienced of the computer world, this will be as a mere And logical, but anyone who has a vague idea of how the programming features of this type of systems, includes well as a request such as this may seem difficult to achieve; in the meantime, Google has set a function that allows you to bind up to three commands in a single sentence, such as “Google, raises the blinds, turn off the lights and making coffee”; a perfect morning routine, do not even believe you?
Almost all of the above commands can be used together, but some commands work only if specifically formulated. An undeniably easiest way to make sure that Google Home run multiple actions, is to create a routine.
Just like Alexa, Google Home now has routines that can be activated with a custom phrase or on a custom schedule. In short, you can create a routine that turns off the lights around the house, locks the front door, regulates temperature and plays relaxing music when you say “OK, Google, good night.”
You can have a routine that takes place every morning on a program such as an alarm that reproduces the news, turn up the blinds, turn on the lights, making coffee and creates a timer so you know when it’s time to leave the house.
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