My wife said she'd like to have automated blinds - amazing since she's not usually enthusiastic about smart home stuff. Anyway, I want the WAF to be bulletproof. What's the consensus about super reliably integrated blinds? SmartWings seems to have targetted me for ads these days, but I'm open to any vendor that works well.
TIA and Merry Christmas,
Jay
I'm a very satisfied Smartwings user. Great product and great customer service. They replaced a couple of shades that I incorrectly specified at no charge. Currently 14 in service and 5 more arriving Monday. Four different purchases over the last year. Mostly zigbee but I tried z-wave for two outdoor shades because of their proximity to Hubitat's location. No difference in performance. Easy integration into Hubitat. I'm currently a matter skeptic, too much a WIP for me. Mine are almost all roller shades. I'll add that I bought a couple of the Roman shades that I would not buy again because I don't care for the design as compared to traditional Roman shades.
Honestly when I went looking for blinds I wasn't satisfied with anything I was finding. Finally we just bought our blinds on blinds.com in what we wanted then used an AM43 for the main french blind, then iblinds v3's on our tilt blinds. For roller blinds there are also plenty of motors. So I would look for your blinds 1st then see if they can be automated. I will also say I saved a lot of money doing it this way.
For reliability, nothing beats Lutron. Of course, nothing costs like Lutron, so if that's part of the WAF...
We can recommend Soma Smart Shades - we have 4 of 'em in our house (two each, pull and tilt, for two shades of vertical blinds) and they work perfectly with both the Android app and Hubitat (through Zigbee).
We also have 2 sets of blinds purchased elsewhere that had no interactive capability, other than the included remote (SWMBO wanted those blinds, thank you). Being the advanced kludger I am, I bought a "backup" remote and hardwired it to a ZEN16, and they now open and close right on schedule. 
I'm also a Smartwings fan. I have 9 in service. Customer service has been great for me as well. I joined a beta to test out Matter, but I think Google turned off Matter compatibility on my Google WiFi mesh after I already had them paired. I replaced just the motor with the Zigbee version and will wait on Matter for now.
I ordered their fabric samples so we could decide what we wanted and where.
I have rules opening them just before sunrise and closing them just after sunset (but only if the window is closed). I have a couple other rules for special cases (open office shade to see if garage opens before car remote start; open shade fully when window is open so it doesn't blow around; etc).
So far they're getting just over 6 months on a charge and I don't let them get to 0%.
Thanks for the replies. Our current (dumb) blinds are top down/bottom up blinds allowing to lower a bit to allow light in, but retain privacy. It's a nice feature. I have googled motorized versions of these, but once you look on the site, they all seems to be "bottom up" motors. I get that it would be super complex, but I'd love to find them. Anyone aware of these?
Edit: searching for "TDBU" yields a few results now. Wasn't aware of that term.
Bali blinds work great.
If you add some compatible motors, a Bond Bridge works very reliably for me, even on the old Community developed integration.
TAke a look at Smartwings Levitate. This thread is a starting place as well. Can Hubitat Control Smartwings 'Levitate' Dual Top/Bottom Up/Down Cellular Shades Nowa - To Matter or not to Matter
Thanks. Will do!
You'll find those in the cellular shade section.
I made my own a few years ago since the prices for motorized cellular shades was/is so high. They are bottom up style. I only spent about $150 for each single casement window.
I used a regular roller shade Zemismart zigbee motor and a standard aluminum tube. But used clear cord attached to the shade's header to "lift" the shade into the valance. They have been working perfectly for years now.
I have 5 of these with a zwave controlled motors. Downside is I’ve had to pair with zwave-js and home assistant due to a lack of compatibility with hubitat and a lack of a custom driver. I believe they are implemented as multichannel devices
I’d prefer to join them to hubitat, but zwave device drivers are a step above the basic groovy coding I’ve done in the past.
I do like their shades though and support has been very responsive for any issue I’ve had.
I have a bunch of their roller shades. I don't need this style but I wondered if it would be possible to treat them (each motor) as two shades.
Yeah that's how zwave-js and HA treats them, two separate blinds. So definitely the way to go in hubitat as well.
Does anyone on here have blinds that support the Tilt command? If so can you tell me if Tilt at 0% mean the slats are fully closed or fully open?
Can't find it in the docs so I figured I'd ask those that have them.
For mine, 0 is fully closed and 99 or 100 is fully open. Default open is 50
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