Eve Motion Blinds

 

My new home in the UK has had many crimes committed against it over the roughly 400 years it has been in existence, but none more so than the 1980's, which this house was firmly stuck in. I am, bit by bit, removing that and updating it.

One particular crime was the curtains in the dining and front reception rooms, which I have now replaced by blinds. As you can see from the picture above, the blinds suit the exposed granite walls very well.

When living in California, my requirements for blinds were different, being mostly to keep the heat out of the house on the south side during the summer, to stop myself by being blinded by the sun whilst I worked in my study, or to stop light from entering the room so I could reduce the reflection in the TV (Actually, I still have this one, as my living room window is south facing, but I have achieved this by automating the inherited curtains for now). Basically, the issues were caused by a great deal of sun light. Whilst the UK certainly has its charms, especially where I live in Cornwall, I do miss that sun!

My experience in the USA was with what I consider to be less than stellar products, mostly because I wasn't prepared to cough up the enormous sums of money expected for Lutron Serena which, though seem to be excellent quality, do require yet one more hub. Don't get me wrong, I do think all the products were good value for money, but not quite the high end I was looking for.

Time has moved on and Eve, one of my favourite home automation companies, has worked with Coulisse announcing their new Smart Blinds in October 2021. Perfect timing for me, as the announcement was for early 2022 availability. Not long after that OmniaBlinds started advertising and, importantly, ship to the UK. Initially, SmartBlinds did not export to the UK, although they did deliver to a few European countries. Since December 2022, however, this has changed, and they have launched Smartblinds UK. However, not all products, such as Honeycomb blinds are available as yet. I somewhat suspect that SmartBlinds are a company owned by Eve and Coulisse, but I have no proof of that, except they popped up after the announcement and are based in the Netherlands, the same as Coulisse.

What particularly grabbed my attention with the new blinds was the support through Thread, which meant that I did not need another hub! Also, the material quality offered by OmniaBlinds looked extremely good and the price, whilst not cheap, was acceptable. So, I ordered 2 blinds through OmniaBlinds.

<update 19th April 2024>

Since originally writing this, Eve have also launched the ability to retrofit their motor to existing blinds. Something really needed in the UK as there still isn't a viable method of getting Eve based blinds here.

Ordering and Installation

The actual ordering process was extremely easy.

Essentially I needed to know if I wanted the blind inside or outside the recessed window space, what fabric I wanted, what the size of my windows are, what side do I wish the motor to be on and do I want the fabric to drop down on the inside (recommended for black out blinds) our the outside. 

The web site takes you through what is required, step by step.

It should be noted that OmniaBlinds only offer a bare roller. SmartBlinds, also offer a cassette option which, in my opinion, does look more neat, but is also more expensive.

It took quite a while for my blinds to arrive, though. Now some of that was because I pre-ordered and then, apparently, the factory had to shut temporarily due to Covid. Still, finally, an enormous cardboard cylinder arrived....

This thing was well over 2m long, but contained the 2 blinds and all their bits and pieces which were all well wrapped.

Seeing as I had to, obviously, pay for the postage (And import duties as we are no longer part of the EU), I can't help but think that surely delivery would have been cheaper if 2 shorter tubes had been used that were then taped together.

<Update> I ordered a second set of blinds for bedroom windows, which are blackout blinds, and these did come in more sensible packaging.

When looking at one end, you can see the motor, and the other end is just hollow.

The motor itself is quite thin, with the batteries clearly inside the tube. You can see how it clicks into place on one of the mounting brackets supplied.

Now for set up.

Measuring needs to be done on the centre of the blind, not the centre of the length of the roller, due to the slight extra width of the motor. This is important to note, otherwise your blind will not centre over the window. I measured multiple times to get it right, as you can see below.

Showing the centre mark for the blind, and then measuring outwards to the right hand bracket.

Unfortunately for me, this window is where my land-line comes into the house, to get the left hand bracket to fit, I had to clean up the installation quite a bit.

Even with cleaning this up, it had forced me to have blinds that rolled down with the fabric facing inwards so it went over the top of the junction box.

Next, was the installation of the brackets. Fortunately, the holes are slotted, so if your measurements are not perfect, there is some adjustment. Here, I show putting on the non-motor side bracket. You then just click the blind in place over the brackets, and finish off with covers on the end.

The blind is now physically installed.

HomeKit set up

This is all relatively easy when all goes well, which it di don't for my first blind. However, I'll take you through the easy set up first.

The HomeKit QR code is cleverly inside the knob on the end of the pull cord, which can also be used to operate the blind. You can setup the blind in the Apple Home App, if you wish, but to get the best experience I would highly recommend using the Eve app. It takes you through the steps you need to do.

You mostly add an accessory, as normal:

It is at this point that the Eve app deviates from the standard of adding an accessory. Initially it asks which way the fabric is on the motor, and which side of the Windows the pull cord and then, just in case, you will be told to mount the blind.

Now you will be asked to set your favourite position, and the installation is essentially complete.

Because the blinds are made to measure, that should be all you need to do. However, they may be a tad longer than you actually need so you can set the top and bottom positions, by going into settings in the eve app, and then selecting the blind you want to adjust and then "positions". You can also do this manually by using the pull cord.

All was not rosey when I installed the first blind.

The first blind I had would not complete the set up. The motor would just go up and down and would not stop.

I contacted Eve support, who I generally have had a great experience with.

I was told to do a reset by pressing and holding the reset button 15-20 seconds, until the LED flashes green 5 times.

Still, I had an issue and it would not work and I was told to contact the retailer.

I contacted OmniaBlinds.

Their first reaction was excellent. We will fix this, or replace it. They gave me a different reset procedure. which was much more complicated, and so they provided me with a video and a description:

Push the reset button and then pull the cord two times like in the video. When you get the green light then push the round button and as soon as it is getting in stepping mode keep holding the button for at least 25 seconds or until 5 red lights is shown.

This worked, and then the blind set up as normal.

Automations

In this case, I've not really done anything fancy. Both of my blinds operate with sun rise and sun set as they are on the north side of the house.

Enhancements - Solar charged.

The Eve motor has a battery built in, and has a USB-C port to enable the battery to be charged. Under normal operation, it is supposed to operate for 6 months without recharging, which isn't bad.

However, I'd rather not charge it at all, so I went looking for a Solar Panel that has a USB port on it, which I found on AliExpress.

I have placed the panel in the lower left of my window, with the USB port facing the bottom. It is stuck to the window using 4 provided suckers. Then the USB cable runs up the Side of the window, and plugs into the blind motor. My Blind is always charged. I do see the charging light blink occasionally. Next I just have to make a neater job of it, as the current setup was just to see if it worked or not.