Motorized Smart Curtains - DIY or Buy? 

Let me know what you think about the Buy or DIY format. I know I didn't spend as much time explaining how to make the curtains, but I tried to do a little better job on the github page readme so you could put it together without too much trouble. If there is sufficient interest I can make a step by step video for converting your completely dumb grommet and rail style curtains into smart curtains.

Don't give up on your anti-cloud philosophy, you aren't alone.

cool Channel and video ! One note I’m American and 57 years old when I was in 7thgrade We were taught the Metric System and my teacher then in th 1970s was insisting by the year 2000 the entire World will be using the one system LMAO ironically I chose Woodworking as my Career and Strangely as it seemed most of our big Machinery is built in Germany and in the 1990s I had to get very good using the Metric system luckily there are Tape Measures with Imperial and Metric on them so for certain repetitive sizes I memorized the closest Imperial Conversion to make it easier on myself plus. I made a Cheat Sheet for my Toolbox to reference if needed it’s funny because one time I was injured in the Hospital and my son had a project he was working on using my tools he would visit me at the Hospital to share his progress and the plans he was using was inMetric so he told me the problems he was having with converting everything in his head and on paper and he asked Dad how do you remember all those measurements ? I admitted to him I don’t open up this drawer onmy toolbox and Look at the back of the peice of wood in it when I’m working I just turn that block of Wood over in the drawer so I can pull the drawer open and read the Imperial measurement

You have such great info in your videos, I really appreciate this channel!

Thank you for all of your content.. You inspired me to dive into the wonderful world of Individually addressable LED light strips and now my apartment is better lit than most music venues and I get complements on my lights constantly. I am going to try your DIY solution with this because I too have grommet style curtains and I have been waiting for the SwitchBot smart curtain to be available ... kind of forgot about it honestly. But I already have a few extra ESP32 boards I never got around to using for other projects and I had already designed the physical piece to move the curtains. So with your github code and handy tips I'm gonna give this a go. Thanks again for all the cool stuff you do and the great clean code and very detailed comments. I look forward to other projects you come up with.

Props for this video. Very thorough comparison of solutions and extremely helpful!! Thank youl

Appreciate this video more than you know. Props!🤜🤛 fan of a lot of your videos. Keep up great work

I've been thinking about DIY on this subject as well.. appreciate your thought leadership here, and it looks so complicated that as a lazy S-O-B I think I'll take the buy route.. Great video!

Great Video! Love the graphics and the format of DIY or BUY..

I think this is a great video..should do like these more often..cuz at the end of the day we need u and other such creative people to come up with new ideas and teach us too.. Please make the step by step video too if you can..It would not harm anybody

Loved the video! Looking at my curtains at home, I probably wouldn’t go through with this as it is a lot quicker to draw the curtains by hand, not to mention that it would cost me a small fortune as I have many windows with eyelet curtains in my home. I do, however have one roller blind covering my back French door that I really would love to automate. In South Africa, we call them eyelet curtains btw. :)

The DIY or Buy format is very similar to what Great Scott uses in some of his videos

Here's my DIY version - Using a D1 Mini (running ESPHome) and a NEMA17 Stepper Motor. The whole thing runs off a 5v mobile phone charger!!! - Step-by-Step build guide and programming tutorial coming soon. DEMO VIDEO: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oq7FaHZPfO4.html Also, here's some pic of the boards installed - up behind the curtains: facebook.com/Dmwizzard/posts/10157676032909452

This is exactly what I was looking for. I've been contemplating to make them myself or just buy it.

Also, I really appreciate the tin foil aspect of yours.. I'm the same - local control or no deal. Amazon Echo is the only HA device I'll allow to use the cloud - local voice recognition is not there.. yet

Nice format. Really enjoyed it👍

Presentation is good, clear and understandable. Gave genuine opinion. I liked this video. I am just starting to learn IoT for home automation and would prefer to DIY for my home window curtains. Thanks For the video. Much appreciated.

I'm working on a design that moves curtains up and down vertically instead, since I almost never have these large sliding glass doors in my apartments that I rent from. My idea was to emulate something you would see similar to a projector-screen, except perform much faster and the installation would be more modular and user-friendly. I've been using a 12v worm-geared motor with a built in hall-encoder, attached directly to 2" diameter PVC pipe using a custom 3D-printed bracket. The built-in encoder can provide me with the motors position up to 0.1 degree of accuracy, and with this I can determine how many revolutions are needed in order to reach the bottom of the window frame. These motor's have a lot of torque to hold weight for big windows and also self-brake, which should stop any leftover momentum after the motor is signaled off. The motor is also fairly fast and can open and close 6ft high windows in about 6-7 seconds. This can be slowed using the motor controller included in my circuit design. Everything will run off a 12v 2800mah battery and I will code the arduino to sleep whenever possible to improve efficiency. The total cost of the project depends on the size of each window, but should typically be around the $50-70 USD ball park. This could of course be modified to save more money by sourcing parts off of eBay and not on Amazon. I prefer having quick deliveries and free/easy returns. You can also use an Arduino Nano instead of an Uno which are like $0.50 cents instead of $5.00. Pipe material, fabric etc etc all can be priced differently depending on where you go. I will try and get a video of it up and running when I've finished prototyping. Right now I'm working on an box-enclosure to house all the electronics and mount it the wall in a visually appealing way. I really like your design concept for the horizontal curtains-- I wasn't too sure how I would do it that myself. I'm curious to how loud your stepper motor is or if you've experienced any torque, belt-issues, fraying or anything else after consecutive uses. If you are not using sensors to determine the start/end points, it would be wise to implement a way to calibrate the motor if it happens to lose power mid-motion or if someone forces the motor out of position. There are many issues to solve in projects like these. It's fun to see what other people are doing too. Thanks for the video!

Great video - could you elaborate how have you fixed your DIY curtain setup including pulley and the pull cord. Would be great, thanks!

Liked this video and format. Your production values keep getting better and better, BTW. I'd love to see you do another DIY or Buy on the subject of automated vertical blinds.

Another excellent video. Really like the DIY vs BUY format. Disappointed you didn’t try my corkscrew idea, though! 😉😁

Great video Rob. Thank you.

I have some cloud based automation, but I'm in the process of switching everything to opensource localization.

Great video man. There are a lot of points where buy wins over diy, but sometimes is just a matte of philosophy. Sometimes you prefer to use something you designed and implemented, that's all.

Fantastic video as allways. Will be great if you try one roller motorized one! Thanks bro!

One of the most advantage of our curtains is that we are selling patented curtain in kit with spliced track, your end customers can DIY the length of track from 2.2 meters to 8.2 meters, it is very convenient for distributor and store/online seller to sell it, and also standard package make shipping and stock more easier.

Great work Rob, as always. THANKS. I like the Buy or DIY format a lot, for all the obvious reasons. Tuya OTA soon? (hint-hint!!) :D

Nice job! I really enjoyed the video and I think I would buy instead of DIY. How funny that they are the exact same speed!

Thanks for the video, I was able to buy diy parts but the bolt, any link or exact size info would be awesome, cheers, also can the precompiled firmware for the shades be used here? Thanks again

Great video, another thing to consider doing. Your work is always so clean looking! nice job.

Cant wait for the blinds version of this.

Completely OT: as a fellow MQTT nut, I'd be interested in hearing a video about how you approach MQTT topic design. I guess most of us, when we got into MQTT, just made up a bunch of topics to get things working, then after a while things got complicated and so we re-hashed the design of our topics, but then started to think more deeply about how they are arranged and how topics represent the real world. It could be a REALLY boring video (which is why I'm not a very good youtuber myself!) but it could be made interesting. There's a lot of potential areas to explore: do your topics mimic locations within the home, device types, automation categories (e.g. audio / light / etc.) or a hybrid; how do you separate device traffic such as commands to actuators and reports from sensors; how do you document all the topics in use in your home (for me, I have SO many topics!); how do you represent devices that belong to open-plan areas in the home which might belong to more than one room... These are just my musings - such a video could be like watching paint dry :P

I really like your diy solution, do you have a video in depth how to DIY this yourself? I have curtains like the one on your door with grommets, but they open in a split fashion like your bedroom curtains

I like your DIY method. How is the cable attached to the curtain? Is it done in such a way that the cord cannot be hidden inside the hollow tube? Another question, which is something that always concerns me with this type of thing, is how well do they cope with being manually opened and closed? Great video, keep them coming!

Hello, Great video, I see you have a Buck convertor listed. where is this in the wiring diagram?

I used the tuya-connect project to flash tasmota onto some smart bulbs I bought that didn't expose any pins. It worked pretty well after a little troubleshooting.

I'm late to the party, but just to put in my dime: I turned the grommet curtains (m2m and specific color I can't get anymore) upside down when I went curtainrail style XD gives a fun effect!

we are building a new home. I'd like to pre-wire the house for 12VDC at the window location. what is a good universal location to have wiring to power blinds/shades and windows? my thought is to get the cable to inside top, on either the left or right side. I am figure I can hide cabling within or at least behind the blind. Valances can also be used to hide wiring that needs to otherwise be exposed.

Is it possible to add a local control? I was thinking about use some IR remote to control the blinds... Do you think that is possible to add a IR control to your project? Would it be too much trouble? Any ideas?

If the click is truly due to a pause, I would suggest not pausing. Just check mqtt while the motor keeps moving. You'll get a small delay in response, but I'd bet it isnt much, and you'll adapt to it pretty qucikly.

Awesome video. I'm so tempted to purchase the smart curtain setup, but I love how they look now and I almost never open them...

Run a drive belt inside your tube and use a magnet on the belt to pull the curtain back and forth.

Just watching this now and I honestly love both solutions. I think the key thing with DIY solutions is to make the note that a 3D printer is pretty well a requirement, or access to someone who can print parts at minimum. This might make a small installation ( 3 or less curtains) more expensive than the commercial product. I know a 3D printer is a great accessory for makers anyway, but some people may not have a lot of use for one :). I am in Australia and I actually don't know of any readily accessible 3D printing options, other than buying a printer. Some people may know friends or what not, but I am just talking in general. It would definitely make for some more expensive curtain controls if a 3D printer had to be factored in for a small installation.

On my personal blind opener I use to pull a string cord I found the best solution was a 3d printed pulley with an elastic band glued around the pulley. This provides good friction for the string.

Hey, did you ever manage to flash Tasmoda on the zemismart curtains?

Looks good, now I need to set up my curtains and blinds to be automated

Can you set up the zemismart to open just one way for a doorway

Did you tasmota the curtains or are they still running tuya and how did you connect to Home Assistant

Questions: Can I use ICONs that I generate (like I do in FLOORPLAN) be used in ESPHome with entities?...(My internet is so bad at the end of the line out here, ATT guarantees NOTHING, can't get Font Awesome or MDI to work sometimes) .If so, what format must they be in (svg, png, jpg..) and what directory would they be in? Thanks

Thanks again fine sir. Not sure which I'll go with yet. I do like local control. Not much cloud on the Mississippi river. :}

Has anyone tried the xiaomi curtain controller and tell me where they fit in in comparison to the DIY as well as the Tuya version?

Any updates on this, Rob? Did Tuya release the OTA version of their firmware, allowing you to work around the problem that you mentioned at 6:20 preventing you from flashing tasmota?

Great video, Rob! Very informative! Did you try playing with different micro-step settings on the stepper driver? I would think you could go all the way up to full step (1/1), for the increased torque (but possibly more "jerk" in the motion), especially since you don't necessarily need that much precision in this application.

so it is still not clear if the Buy option requires an additional rail and how that rail looks like when the curtains are open?

can u send me the whole diy setup video. can your diy system open curtains in different directions

To get the noice down on your DIY solution you should look into replacing the stepper motor driver to a TMC2130 or similar from Trinamic as it should make your stepper motor run much smoother and thus more quiter. PS: Depending on you country Ikea will next week be releasing cheap motorized rollerblinds in their Tradfri (Trådfri) series which could be an alternative to curtains for some.

6:29 Tuya OTA method. Can these blinds have Tasmota flashed onto it?

Thank you 👍

For your upcoming blinds project, if you want to do a similar comparison (and this one was great, I might add), IKEA has filed their upcoming Trådlös motorized curtains documents with the FCC, likely showing up in the March or April time frame. We can reasonably expect the over-priced segment in existence today to get some serious competition from that, but I don’t know to what extent they will prove home automation hacker friendly, and would not expect MQTT integration out of the box.

Is there a POE version of the Zemismart?

I also want to do this with my rollable shades. I ordered a continuous servo for this. Can i also do this using a 360servo or should i use a stepper motor

What about if we already have them old school expensive cord draw drapery system & works good manually. It uses those hooks U showed slotted into sliders in track rail. & has an anchor fully down wall where I can see motorizing it. This house is from 1958 & they may be original lol.

This is why I subscribed to The Hook Up! Awesome content as always 😄 But my Pateon name haven't shown up in the videos yet 😢

Does anyone know how to manually set the limits on the Zemismart Curtain? I don't like the automatic settings.

Do the Zemismart Curtains have a feature to set "Halfway"? I know your outdoor roller blinds had that feature. I would like to specify a doorway for a sliding door curtain. Also, how long in length is the Motor?

Thinking about purchasing the zenismart. Does the plug only work on the left side? Or can you move it to the right?

anyone has a link how to DIY curtains for home theater, my curtains comes from a real theater and are pretty heavy.

Why are you reading the manual. You know we don't do that until AFTER it is up and not working. Look at how much you learned doing it DYI. Also, whats the fun in buying, except the WAF is high because it gets done quicker. Nice video Rob. Thanks

with zemismart solution, can you know the exact position at certain moment? Can you open/close it for a certain % ? Or it works only as fully open or fully close? Also, it's possible to stop one position (middle for example)?

Ever thought of making a 2024 version of this?

So can I program the curtain to open every morning 6 AM by itself? While I want to sleep until 7 AM and wish to have an option to wake up by sunshine? :) It is easier to leave bed when sunshine already in the room haah

it seems you recorded it before we did the tuya OTA party last weekend. have you tried tuya ota since....does ti work ?

Able to cut it? I need a 2.5 m piece

Still loving your channel. Superb video! Also to add: no tin-foil hat for being anti-cloud (I know it was a joke) but seriously, I completely agree. I make exceptions for Alexa (and feel uneasy about it... but the convenience of Alexa has become so normalised into our home), but generally I'm happy with a system I have to VPN in to control. [Second edit: just read the comments below and glad to see I'm not the only one in agreement!]

Ok, one more question before I hit the "buy" button: I can't seem to find info on whether the tracks are center closing or from the side? And can the motor be mounted on either side of the rail? Looks like it from their website, but the info is a bit confusing to me. Anybody know more about that?

Rob, Could the zemismart kit be configured to pull a single drape across one window? much like your DIY solution? their website is pretty rough and does say. Mine would be the shortest model on a single window pulling all the drape to one side. GREAT VIDEO BTW! keep it up!

Can you still use these curtains manually? If a friend were to come over and physically close the curtains like a normal house, would it rip the assembly apart or would it adapt? Also, would it be aware of the new curtain position and be able to open them without going through the process of "closing" first?

Do you think is possibile to embed some application code in tasmota? So you have all all its beauty and also some "if push button is low then keep gpio High" feature according your application needs?? for explample keep motor spinning until i keep the wall mount button pushed.

can anyone list me the stuffs to buy to make this diy automatic curtain?? with price

Excellent video

diy version sounds a lot louder :( also, could you turn the home-assistant module into a switch? if so, you could use alexa cloud module and sync it to the cloud via that way on your diy version

Awesome video

hmmm starting to look like a challenge.. my curtains have pull cord to open and close, and you can twist the rod to open/close the built in shades

I didn't really understand how the you converted your curtains to use a pulley system. Could you expand on that or are the any more detailed instructions ?

Great video, but where I live most people have roller blinds (like me), could you make a video on that as well?

Great format and video!!

Mayhaps i'll use something like this for masking my screen.

Any chance you could explore (horizontal) motorized blinds? At least in the southeast U.S. , this is much more common than curtains.

use a trinamic stepper motor driver which has stealthchop. TMC2208 or TMC2209

Thank you for the great tips on making a diy smart curtain. But this is kind of too many pieces to know for newbies like me. Please make a step by step video.

Can u make a step by step video on diy

Are there any smart home solutions for regular window blinds like your bedroom windows?

SInce i have some very special aranged curtains in our bedroom ( triangular shaped window front due to roof, very high so splitted in to rows), the buy solution wouldn't work. Also, since i would need to control around 5 single curtains, that would be very expensive. i think i could do way cheaper with the diy solution, although it would need some special enhancements (e.g. for a triangular curtain)

I really like the zemismart solution, but I am also a anti-cloud-crazy-person and really don't like the idea of cloud control. In many cases it means that with the internet connection down, automated control no longer works. Do you have an idea/direction if changing firmware on these things is even an option to expect in the (near?) future?

Did you ever end up converting the firmware on the zemismart to tasmota?

I tried the coupon code but it came up expired

A $95 curtain rod? They saw you coming mate ;-)

Are there any plans of a smart lock and maybe with a fingerprint sensor? BTW I really enjoyed the new format too, keep it up.

Did you consider adding a tmc2100 stepper driver I bet this will solve your noise "issue" ypu can get them cheap via aliexpress but price difference with original distributors isn't huge. So you might want not to wait 3 weeks for them to arrive and shell out a few extra bucks. Keep up the great work on your channel even if DIY vs BUY sounds a bit of a format steal who cares as long as the project you're doing is original ;-)

Good video