What automated blinds work best with Hubitat?

I use Radio RA2 by Lutron in my house so prefer getting Lutron shades but kind of pricey for what I need so wanted to check other options. Are there any brands where they are more supported than others, or any that are officially supported? Just don't want to get one that only works via a seldom updated plugin if at all possible. Thanks so much.

I have Caseta and was also attracted to the Lutron shades until I priced them. I didn't know how much we would use them (having never had them before) so I went with Graber Shades from ZebraBlinds. They use Somfy electronics.

They paired easily with my C-4 (I haven't moved them to a C-7 yet). Only trick was to reset them before pairing (that's pretty much Z-Wave SOP).

I don't do anything fancy with them.

I put the first one in my office as a "pilot project". I found it worked well so we got 5 for the master bedroom. In both rooms I have setup pico(s) (5 button) and have Rule Machine rules for each room. The Pico buttons are assigned as follows:
Top button = open shade(s) fully
Second button = open shades 75%
Middle button = open shades 50%
Fourth button = open shades 25%
Bottom button = close shades fully

The shades were custom cut to size and they did a very good job with that. They fit nicely and had a good mounting system. The mounting system can be a real issue depending on how your windows are framed and trimmed. I would urge anyone looking at any shade solution to get a sample of the mounting bracket so you can see how it fits on your windows.

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If you want officially supported (Hubitat appears to prefer the term "compatible" rather than "supported," perhaps to imply that they don't "support" the devices and the manufacturers don't generally officially partner with the platform), then I'd stick to this list: List of Compatible Devices - Hubitat Documentation. You can sort by the "Device Type" column and look for "Shade Control" or "Shade Controller," which should then all be grouped together. There's not a lot. :slight_smile: But as is often the case, many more devices might work with either the generic drivers (my guess: probably any Z-Wave blind/shade) or community support (like iBlinds v2).

If I had the money for RA2 shades and wanted shades (I prefer Venetian blinds, though I know some people use these terms loosely to cover the same products), I'd probably go for the Lutron option--but I'm not sure I want to pay that much. But I'm sure you'll get other ideas, like the above. Since you have Lutron, I second the idea to try a Pico for manual control if you want it: I have one mounted near most of my blinds, and it's great since most of mine don't otherwise have a method for manual control. Lutron's "shade engraved" Picos are a bit more expensive, but there's no reason to get those if you don't care about the icons--they're all just buttons to Hubitat.

Thanks everyone! I haven't actually priced out Lutron yet but I can just imagine based on what I paid for the RA2 stuff, and based on your replies here I don't have a lot of confidence in it being overly cheap haha. The problem I have is the windows I want to change just have basic roller shades right now where those Ikea automated ones would be fine but of course they all don't come in the size I need, each is off by like an inch. If these were going in the living room or something I'd probably pay for Lutron for sure but this is more for the master ensuite.

I'll check the other options mentioned! I'm curious now, what roughly was the pricing provided for Lutron if they are that expensive? :slight_smile:

You can get a rough idea by pricing out the serena shades online and figure the RA2 are going to be more :stuck_out_tongue: We are just going through this exercise so I have priced out the serena but haven't heard from the dealer on the sivoia shades yet (happy to post back when I do). I did compare the serena pricing to the graber and the difference (in rollers for the sizes I need) didn't seem that big - maybe $100-200 per blind. That does add up of course but I would hope the lutron stuff is as solid as their lighting while zwave can be a bit fussier (in my experience at least). If I didn't already own lutron, I probably would be considering graber.

If you can stomach the price tag, you’ll probably be happiest with the sivoia shades. But I’ve also used Graber’s line of z-wave shades and they’re pretty good too.

I was digging in my files for the cost information and I couldn't find it. I recall someone in this community alerted us to a sale at ZebraBlinds that resulted in considerable savings off their published pricing for the Graber shades.

You can also get a Zigbee motor for your existing roller shades for about $70, then you don't have to buy new window coverings I'd you don't want to. The Zemismart Zigbee motors have been reported to work well with Hubitat.

If you get Somfy motors that use RTS, the Bond bridge is a good option for controlling them, and has a Community set of drivers for local control. I can find some links if you are interested.

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I'm very happy with my one pair of Ikea Fyrtur blinds. There is a community driver that works well. If you have an Ikea close, these are very nice. I recharge the batteries about once very 3 months, and they open/close every day with an automation.

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good to know. i have Somfy blinds but ran into issues with their encryption. i wound up connecting a second remote to a ZEN16 to control my blinds. any specific Bond bridge to look into? (i'm not too familiar with Bond)

They only have two variations of the hub, I just got the standard one, the pro version from memory just provides the ability to connect more devices. I'll track down a link later.

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Here's the link for the Bond Bridge:

And here's the pro for anyone interested. It does have a few more features including extra range, PoE and mounting options.

Here's a link to the Community drivers:

I bought some IKEA On/Off switches by mistake to put in each room to control the blinds individually, only to find they don't work natively with HE. I now pair these remotes to a Conbee2 stick on my raspberry Pi and use the DeCONZ drivers to bring them into my HE hub. I then use some RM rules to respond to the On/Off button presses and call the Bond drivers to open / close the blinds. A little complicated, but at least it's local.

Simon

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thanks for this info. i'm surprised i didn't come across this when i was looking for a IR device, but i also didn't look too hard...now to explain to the wife that i'm buying another device. wish me luck

edit: well, while the wife is asleep, somehow an amazon order was made :laughing: it should be here within the next 7 hours

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Ha ha. Best of luck for your success.

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Off topic, but ohh how I wish we could receive Amazon orders that quickly in Canada... minimum is usually 3 days... on a 2 day order...

ouch. it used to be like that for me, but since i've moved and have a warehouse in a 30 mile (48 km) radius, i've been getting great delivery times. i'm almost tempted to order and see if they'll just let me pick it up from the warehouse (similar to how you can go to UPS warehouse to pick stuff up)

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that was painless. got my blinds connected to the bond bridge

@lmoreau if you go to Supported Devices | Bond you can see if your device is compatible with it

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3 days!? I'm in Canada also, as long as you order by 12pm it's delivery by 9pm same day, as long as you have Prime of course. Very rarely they will mess up and it won't arrive same day, but any time you contact them they give you another month of Prime for free for the hassle lol.

I’m jealous! We don’t get that on the east coast unfortunately...