Window Covering

[blagie]

I'd like to cover my windows. Goal:

- Block out light at night (neighbors have rather aggressive lights)

- Allow light in during the day, and not block too much sun (normal curtains cover a bunch of the side of the window)

- Insulate during the winter

- Cleanable (cheap blinds just get thrown away and replaced once covered with dust, since they're basically impossible to clean properly). Ideally, it'd go in the washing machine.

- Maintainable. Pure mechanical is great. Arduino / micro:bit with fixed firmware is fine. Something running in node on my desktop WILL break when node node 35 comes out running on Ubuntu 2034, and I hate projects which break. I have projects in my house from decades ago which work. NOTHING from that era which requires software works. Even one FPGA project needs to be reflashed, and there's no way to do that without some discontinued proprietary tool on Windows 98 or something.

Bonus: Automatically (and quietly) have these open to let sun in during the morning, and (quietly) close at night.

I don't like pull-to-the-side, since they cover up a lot of the window during the day, and take up a lot of space.

Resources:

- I have a nice sewing machine

- I have a basic machine / woodworking shop

- I have a very nice EE lab

- I have time (I can't say I have too much time, but I don't need this today, and working for a few hours each week for a few months, projects eventually get done)

I'm not rich by HN standards. I can afford normal stuff, but I can't afford e.g. a $1000 contraption engineered in Japan for rich folks. I'm much more in the "rig something up with a used car window motor" camp than the "buy something nice" camp.

[Mashimo]

I bought automated blackout roller blinds at ikea (FYRTUR) and connected them to my home automation software via zigbee. But you can probably find alternatives that do wifi.

They are not super quiet, but someone made an alternative firmware with less voltage. I have not tried it.

Mine go slowly up a few minutes before my alarm goes up. If I change my alarm time, the roller time also changes.

Not sure if you can clean them.

[blagie → Mashimo]

Thank you. That's very likely very perfect as a starting point.

My experience with most of these sorts of things is that they're horrible as and-products, but that's not how I use them. The basic flow:

- Buy it

- Put in a bigger direct-drive motor instead of a gear-driven one to reduce noise

- Change the fabric for insulation and washability

- ...

Ship of Thesus

They're quite often perfect to start tweaking and iterating from. The number of modified Ikea items I have in my house is... perhaps not large, but moderate.

Their blackout cellular blind might actually be even better. Less hackable, but much more directly usable. Cellular blinds provide much more insulation, by virtue of air cavities.

[brudgers]

You can get blackout curtains with a rod and hanger brackets for less than $50 at Walmart.

If you try those, you can start to figure out what actually works for you rather than operating on theory...for example, you might find that like many people moving the curtains before bed and again when you wake up is 48 seconds well spent each day...for a few years that will be less total time than a few hours a week for a few months.

You can probably install them in an afternoon even with little experience and they are the simplest thing that might work for you. Your needs probably aren't that unique.

If your needs actually are, add some motors, pulleys, and photosensors wired through some relays to an arduino. Likewise if you decide this is your life's work.

Good luck.

[blagie → brudgers]

I do have something along those lines right now, if a little bit more ad-hoc. I'm pretty aware of my needs.

It's not the point. I enjoy my life the way it is. I like having things I made, and I like my (less-than-well-paid-but-meaningful) work.

There are things you do to save you time, and there are things you do because you enjoy it. About half of the things in my home are homebrew, or at least modified a little bit. I'm perfectly aware I could go from "not rich by HN standards" to "very rich" by spending a few years in a high-paid job, and then paying people to do that for me. However, I'd be spending my time doing things I don't enjoy, in order to... ?