Eve, Coulisse say that Thread-enabled MotionBlinds will debut in early 2022

AppleInsider

Eve Systems, which makes HomeKit-enabled tech, has announced that its MotionBlinds window covering collaboration with Coulisse will debut in early 2022.

Credit: Eve/Coulisse

News that Eve and Coulisse were teaming up to produce new smart blind motors with Thread support surfaced earlier in 2021. Now, the two companies have announced that Eve MotionBlinds will launch early in 2022.

The Eve MotionBlinds will be the first smart blind motors on the market to support the Thread technology, which should simplify installation, automation, and control of motorized window coverings.

"With the integration of Thread, Coulisse and Eve take a head start on the connected home future that awaits the blinds industry," says Christiaan Roetgering, owner and CEO of Coulisse. "By enabling installation, automation and control directly on the iPhone, Eve MotionBlinds are the perfect complement to our fully integrated window coverings offering."

The Eve MotionBlinds won't require a proprietary bridge. Instead, they'll support direct Bluetooth and Thread connections. Users will be able to add the motorized blinds to their setups with a simple HomeKit code. For users with a Border Router in their smart home kit, Eve MotionBlinds will join a network automatically. For Apple users, a Border Router could be a HomePod mini or an Apple TV 4K.

Eve and Coulisse said that roller blinds powered by the Eve MotionBlind system will become available from Coulisse retailers in early 2022. The Eve MotionBlinds are currently available for pre-order in some countries.

MotionBlind motors for curtains, Venetian blinds, and cellular shades will launch later, Eve and Coulisse said.

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theirongiant

I wanted to compare these new shades to the Lutron Serena Smart Blinds, which has been pretty much the only game in town for ultra-wide blinds (over 48") or for homeowners who wanted to "graduate" from IKEA to something nicer.

For those of you who don't know, the IKEA Fyrtur smart blinds come in a handful of fixed widths from 60-120cm (23 5/8" ~ 47 1/4").  Each blind works independently with the items included in the package, but to integrate them with the big 3 smart home systems, you must use three components: the remote control, the signal repeater, and the Trådrfri gateway.  Only the Trådfri is a separate purchase.  The IKEA system uses ZigBee, and it's a bit of a chore to set up and pair for the first time.  Once it's paired, though, it's fine and dead reliable.  If you have to reset it, though, it's going to be a real test of your patience.

So I went to the Belgian pre-order site to price out some blinds for my nearly 8-foot wide living room window, with the following options:

• Essential White
• Rolgordijn (Single blind)
  
• In Het Venster (in the window)
• Width and height: 236 x 120 cm (approx 93" x 47")
• Transparantie: Verduisterend (opaque)
• Material color: white
• System type: Cassette (looks cleaner)
• System size: Klein (small).  The large is not needed unless you have really tall windows.
• System color: white
• Motor side: right

The final price as configured is 358.37 Euros, or a shade over $400.

Meanwhile, a comparably configured, battery-operated Lutron Serena shade costs anywhere from $800 - $1,200    depending on fabric and options.

These Eve Smart Blinds are going to fill the void between those who want to do better than IKEA, and homeowners who can't justify $1,000 per window on smart blinds.

edited October 2021

strangedays

theirongiant said:

The final price as configured is 358.37 Euros, or a shade over $400.

I see what you did there…

libertyforall

Rumor has it, Thread support is coming to Ikea's shades too, hopefully just a FW update...

darkvader

Even as notoriously lazy as I am, I can't convince myself that I'm lazy enough to not be able to go over to the window and open or close the blinds manually.

entropys

It is useful in a number of ways, for example if you want your windows open at night but want the blackout blind in place before the sun rises.

ikea are no good for me as my Windows are all 180cm wide.

edited October 2021

name99

Ikea score really strongly on the physical installation. They are extremely light, and the installation mechanism is "flexible", meaning that even after you have drilled holes and inserted screws, it's easy to unclip the blinds from their location if you ever need to. In a similar vein, it's very easy to pop out the battery to recharge it.

These may sound like minor matters, but I have also used MySmartBlinds venetians which are extremely heavy, making them a total PITA. I need two people to help me install them, and if anything goes wrong (one motor died) it's a nightmare to go up there to try to root around to find a component and flip a switch or whatever. Likewise MySmartBlinds use the most annoying system in the world for plugging various cables into connectors; it's horrible to deal with on the ground, utterly unacceptable when you are five feet up a ladder trying to plug something into something else blind and one-handed. The one thing MySmartBlinds do well is they have a nice solar power panel that augments and continually recharges the battery. In some locations it means you never need to recharge; in others it stretches recharges to perhaps once every eighteen months rather than every nine months. 

But Ikea are, as pointed out, just awful in terms of setup. In THEORY it all sounds great, that each blind comes with a little manual controller; but the reality is that the combination of super cheap hardware (so the controllers have zero intelligence), the fact that phones don't speak zigbee, and the awful Ikea app mean that when anything goes wrong expect to spend a day figuring it all out again. The basic problem is that Ikea have a mental model of how things work that matches nothing else on earth, and you will take four hours to reverse engineer that mental model -- then immediately forget it as soon as you are done. (Weird concepts like "a room" basically means "a set of things controlled by a common remote" -- and it means EXACTLY that, not what you think a room means. Or the weird way you transfer some sort of pairing knowledge from the hub into the remote and then via the remote to the devices.) 

IF this nonsense all goes away with Thread, then Ikea becomes a really strong contender.

Until then, before anyone spends a lot of money on this Eve/Coulisse option, consider what I said! How heavy are they? How easy to install? How easy to charge/swap out the battery? Do you ever have to get on a ladder and fiddle around behind the blind to try to flip some tiny, invisible switch to reset? These are things you do not think about when buying, but that will matter to you once or twice a year -- oh boy, will they matter!

And spare us the nonsense of how lazy it is to use Smart Blinds. You don't want them, don't use them! But they can be used 
- for thermal control [keep out sun in summer days, let the house cool down in summer nights; vice versa for winter]
- to prevent glare through certain windows at sunrise or sunset (changing as the sun moves over the year)
- to make the TV room darker when watching.
etc.
Most of these are things you wouldn't bother to do every time because they're not worth the effort; but having them happen automatically just makes the house a more pleasant environment.