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Smart Home

With the Slide, home curtains slide into the 21st Century

At this point, many parts of the home can be retrofitted with connected components in order to bring them into the 21st century. The result? Dumb lamps that can be cloud controlled and front doors with the ability to track everyone who comes in and out of the home. Curtains, however, have been a bit of a challenge since they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, forcing apartment dwellers and homeowners to buy brand new units to satisfy their connected needs.

The Slide is one of the few devices designed as a smart retrofit system for curtains and blinds. With it, users can use a companion smartphone app to control single or multiple curtains, adjust how far they should open and even set timers and schedules. IFTTT integration takes the Slide’s functionality up a notch, letting users take advantage of other aspiring smart home mainstays like the Flic and Amazon’s Echo.

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Smart Home

FlipFlic won’t leave you blinded by the light

It can be a major drag to face interruptions every time the window blinds need to be adjusted due to glare.

FlipFlic is a solar-powered, energy-saving device that adjusts window blinds based on sunlight, temperature or any schedule that is set via the accompanying app. An iOS app is already available and an Android version will follow soon. The automation device is easy to install. With one click, FlipFlic, which is about the size of a roll of quarters, attaches to window blinds magnetically.

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Home

Noon Blinds lets homes see and feel the light in fun patterns and colors

Window blinds come in a vast variety of colors, materials, sizes and shapes. It’s tricky to decide on which one to buy, especially when they all typically do the same thing.

Noon Blinds takes the everyday set of shades and puts a spin on them. The window shading system has holes in it of different shapes (polka dots, stars, and grids), and also comes in a variety of colors, including yellow, black, beige, gray and white. Any light that pours through is spattered into the room through cool designs. Increased airflow means that fresh air is allowed into the room as well. According to the campaign, the inspiration for Noon Blinds comes from the ornate windows in old estates and castles.

There is definitely a niche market for this product. Any creative type will certainly jump at the chance to purchase Noon Blinds. Others may find the patterns a little annoying. Still, Noon Blinds should keep going with the idea and produce more shapes—and especially colors—since its current offerings are a little boring. For one 24” x 118” blind in their choice of color, backers must donate $12 to the Kickstarter campaign, which is looking for $8,700 in funding by March 12.

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Home

MagBlind uses magnets to pick up the slats when they all fall down

Those PVC vertical plastic blinds that come in many apartments or “value” priced newer homes are a great inexpensive way to protect one’s privacy. But if one has pets or small children, it doesn’t take long for a slat or two or more to break. There are very few ways to fix these blinds outside of replacing them – until MagBlind.

The simple, but effective repair kit includes two magnets that attach to the top of the broken slat with 3M tape. Then the metal stem gets inserted into the blinds and the slat stays attached via magnetization. MagBlind is detachable, so one can take it along if moving into a new home with vertical slat blinds.

This seems like an excellent idea and quality product that fixes a very common problem that comes with these blinds. Backers looking for a way to automate these blinds might want to check out EZ Wand, and Tilt My Blinds. This campaign seeks to raise $500 by February 20, 2015. For $2, backers get one repair kit with an expected delivery of March 2015.

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Smart Home

EZ Wand has the magic touch to motorize blinds

One part of the home that has unceremoniously been ignored by smart home fever is the window blind. As such, automating them is an involved process that usually costs home owners lots of time and money to properly do. The EZ Wand makes the entire process as simple as replacing the wand on horizontal or vertical window blinds. When that’s done, the supplied remote control can control up to eight different wands either individually or in groups, making what used to be an annoyance as easy as a button press.

With the EZ Wand as easy to install as it is, it makes for a low-cost no-brainer for most home owners who are looking for this sort of thing. The 4 AAA required powers the wand for nine months while the remote for two years at a distance of up to 45 feet away, a fact that would make it pretty versatile were it not for its lack of color options. Unfortunately, the EZ Wand is limited in what kind of blinds it can control and doesn’t feature smartphone interaction. Other types of blinds can be outfitted with the ShutterEaze or Tilt My Blinds instead. In any case, $59 gets backers one wand and a remote, with an estimated delivery date of December 2014. The company behind the campaign is looking for $35,000 to make this product a reality.

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Smart Home

Smart control kit lifts the difficulty in controlling window blinds

One of the biggest hurdles that home automation faces is the cost and complexity of installing devices for every small or mundane aspect of a house.

Tilt My Blinds thinks that smart blinds are a great addition to any home, and wants to make the process simple for anyone. Working with virtually any kind of existing blinds, Tilt My Blinds is a simple device that takes less than 15 minutes to install on each set of blinds and allows for scheduled opening and closing of the blinds as well as control via Bluetooth devices or wireless switches. The blinds are powered by a battery which can be charged using any USB outlet or with an optional solar panel to save even more time and energy. It’s going to take $50,000 to make a properly-funded endeavor. A Tilt My Blinds retrofit kit will cost backers $75 and arrive in February 2015.

For those automating their home piece by piece, Tilt My Blinds is a great way to add some futurism into even the most quaint of dwellings. The solar panel is  great for taking even more effort away from managing the blinds, and the TV plug add-on to reduce viewing glare demonstrates the kind of foresight that should make this product successful.

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Smart Home

Jalousier lets sun shine in on home automation with blinds control

The Premise. Blinds and curtains can often be difficult to maneuver and operate, and they always have to be readjusted for different lighting environments. Even expensive electric blinds still have to be operated by button or a remote control. Wouldn’t it be great is the blinds could just adjust automatically?

The Product. The Jalousier, named for the French word for blinds, looks to overcome the everyday obstacles normal blinds pose. The device is able to monitor different stimuli such as lighting conditions, room temperature, sun position, and weather. Using these variables, the Jalousier adjusts the blinds to optimize natural daylight, provide privacy, and lower artificial lighting, cooling, and heating by up to 18%. The built-in wifi makes it accessible through your smartphone, and integrable with your smart home community.

The Pitch. The Bulgarian team offers a pretty self-explanatory device, and the video shows just how simple it is to use. The project creators explain the difficulties of wrestling with blinds and always having to readjust them, and then they show how the Jalousier factors in different variables to adjust to the ideal angle. The design of the product makes it easy to install and take off with minimal effort, and the video shows just how easy that is.

The Perks. If you want to try it out at the early bird price, one Jalousier will cost $99. If you want to expand to more blinds throughout your house, the price doesn’t get lower as you purchase more—it’s a flat rate of an additional $100 for each additional device. Currently, Jalousier expects to deliver its device by October 2014.

The Potential. The Jalousier has a minimalist design that packs some interesting features that change the way we control our blinds. Electric blinds can often be too pricey, so the Jalousier is a more economic solution that also puts more control in your hands through their free app. Control of one’s blinds isn’t at the top of the home automation wish list, but after the precedent set by products such as Nest thermostat and Hue light bulbs, it seems as though another home automation task is about to be democratized.