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by dag 6229 days ago
I used to install automation and A/V equipment in boardrooms.

I'm curious, do home users go for automated blinds, room lighting, or TV controls?

2 comments

The short answer is no. This stuff has been around for 40-50 years and you dont see it in homes. The few things that homeowners do care about have special purpose controllers: heating, irrigation, perimeter lighting. I see no need to fire up my computer to turn on the furnace when I can walk over to the thermostat. If I want really fancy control, I buy a really fancy thermostat. My coffee maker has a timer, so if I want coffee at 7am, I can set it. At the same time I can check the coffee and the water level. Computer control would buy me nothing since I still have to check the coffee and water.

The one time I thought about controls was when I had to replace a leaking skylight in a cathedral ceiling. I could do it myself for $300-400 or I could get one with electrical controls plus a carpenter plus an electrician for $1500-2000. I went with DYI and a long pole to open and close it.

The ones interested in home automation do. Blinds are probably the least common, but the fact that you can get IR controls for your blinds on products you buy at Home Depot gives you some indication that there ARE people buying these things.

The problem comes from trying to integrate the 3 things you mentioned, as an example.

If I am going to watch a movie on TV, I probably want to control the blinds and turn the lights down or off. If your blinds are IR controlled, instead of a keypad and/or RF control, you have a decent probability of being able to turn on the TV and close the blinds, as long as the IR target for the blinds is close enough to the TV so that the user holding the remote control doesn't have to wave it around the room.

But, there really aren't any lighting controls with direct IR interfaces, and very very few multi-remotes have IR libraries for automation devices. So, you need to install the room lighting, setup an IR interface, most likely either program the remote or the IR interface so that one can interact with the other, and then setup a macro on the TV remote.

Most people would rather just do things manually.