An Helpful DIY Smart Home Project

There are a lot of smart home products that can make a house more efficient, but none may be as cool as smart blinds. The BlindsMagic Smart Motorized Roller Shades are an economical way to add motorized, connected window coverings to your home and although I was skeptical about the DIY project, it’s mostly proved to be great.

BlindsMagic Smart Motorized Roller Shades

BlindsMagic smart shades are designed to work seamlessly with popular smart home systems, such as HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and more. No matter where you are, you can always be in control of your home with your smartphone.

Pros

• Customizable (Charging port side, app compatibility, light filtering)
• Native HomeKit support with Matter
• Fast, quiet operation

Cons

• Some paper instructions were outdated and hard to follow
• Not all USB-C cables supported for charging

Price and Availability

The BlindsMagic Smart Motorized Roller Shades are one of several styles of available window coverings from the company. These start at $144.99, but go up in price after 29 inches wide and 69 inches long. Some of the different designs and technology options add cost too.

I found that even when choosing some non-default options, the price for smart roller blinds was still competitive.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

I’ve been interested in smart blinds of some sort for a while, but the cost and installation have kept me away. An invitation to test BlindsMagic eased my hesitation. The company provided three shades to cover a bay window, but it did not pay for this review.

Before trying the company’s product, I would have been skeptical about using BlindsMagic on my own because the site’s imagery is heavily staged. It’s hard to be certain what’s shown will actually show up. After receiving several shades, I feel more confident in the products. (You can order material samples ahead of time if that helps.)

Going this route still requires a DIY spirit and a bit of trust. It ended up taking me several hours to remove the old blinds from three windows, install the new roller shades, and figure out the remote and HomeKit integration.

I used the inside-mount option and was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get the hardware in place, minus all the time spent double-checking the measurements, pre-drilling, and those steps.

As a side note, BlindsMagic recommends you measure the tops and bottoms of your windows and I found out first-hand that the top may be a significantly different size from the middle or bottom—oops.

The Technology of Smart Window Coverings

I run a mostly Apple HomeKit home so I was interested in BlindsMagic’s Matter connectivity. This is the latest standard that should keep compatible products relevant and functioning for the longest possible time.

There are options for Alexa-controlled blinds or Zigbee-enabled blinds so you will want to choose your tech preference accordingly. Buying a physical remote seems like a good idea as a backup since I don’t think any of the window covering options have manual cords.

Once I installed the blinds, connecting them to Apple’s Home app only took a couple of minutes. I put them into connectivity mode and scanned the QR code.

It’s nice to be able to ask Siri to raise or lower the blinds on a whim, from across the room. But the real reason smart blinds will change your life is because of their automation possibilities. I have the blinds set to close 30 minutes after sunset and open at sunrise. For me, this is better than setting a specific time because the times get adjusted automatically throughout the year as the seasons change.

If that’s too simple the Home app allows for automation relating to people coming or leaving, when another smart device is used, or a sensor detects something.

A few examples of these include lowering the blinds when the thermostat reaches 75 degrees. Opening the blinds whenever you get home and shutting them whenever you leave. Or if a certain light or fan turns on, then close the blinds. Everyone’s experience in this area will depend on the other smart devices they have, but there are a lot of possibilities.

The Battery Life Is Good But Charging Is Less So

BlindsMagic advertises a battery life of four to six months, which the company says is about 600 uses. Once that’s depleted, recharging the battery will take about six hours.

Right now, I have the blinds set to rise in the morning and lower at dusk. Theoretically, with that schedule, I should get closer to a year of battery life. But I’ve also been using them much more throughout the day so in a couple of weeks I’ve managed to lower the battery by about 12%.

If you are going to use them frequently, like every couple of hours, then the battery life might constantly be a problem. It could be a pain to continually need to charge your blinds.

So how have I recharged the battery? Even with the choice of a left or right-sided USB-C port, there aren’t always outlets close by. I’ve used a power bank and set it on the window sill to reach the port. The highly unfortunate part of the charging story is that none of my USB-C to USB-C cables worked. I needed to use a USB-C to USB-A cable that was less smart and used lower voltage. Despite the blinds’ forward-looking use of Matter, the charging technology used is less than modern.

Should You Buy the BlindsMagic Smart Motorized Roller Shades?

While I don’t know if I would recommend outfitting an entire home with the BlindsMagic Smart Motorized Roller Shades without trying one first, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the material, the HomeKit integration, and the battery life.

I can’t vouch for everyone’s experience with BlindsMagic, but my experience made me strongly reconsider whether some of the more expensive options are really worth the cost. These have been more or less what I was hoping they’d be.

BlindsMagic Smart Motorized Roller Shades

BlindsMagic smart shades are designed to work seamlessly with popular smart home systems, such as HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and more. No matter where you are, you can always be in control of your home with your smartphone.