Your blind's tilt knob, motorised — without touching anything sealed.
BlindBot is a small open-hardware cap that slides over the existing fluted tilt knob of a Finnish between-glass blind (välikaihdin) and turns it for you. Pull it off to take over by hand.
Status
This site. CAD preview renders from the OpenSCAD sources (contact sheet in CI artifacts). USB firmware build in CI, once the device-layer fix is merged.
Solar firmware build. Knob measurements. A printed test-fit of the cup and liner. Nothing here has been measured on a real window yet.
Help wanted: knob measurements
- Diameter over the ribs at the top and at the tip
- Fluted length, rib count, rib depth and width
- Shaft diameter and the clip joint
- Knob centre to the frame face; tip to the hinge barrel and to the hook
- Frame width, and where the lift cords run
A caliper and a ruler are enough. Estimates in the repo are not measurements.
What it does
It tilts the slats under Matter control — slowly, quietly, and with layered torque safety so the sealed double-glazed unit is never forced:
No screws, no adhesive on the mechanism. The head pushes up over the knob and docks its tail on the existing hook (or a removable tab on the frame face).
An O-ring friction clutch plus firmware current limits and soft end stops sit between the motor and the blind. Turning the knob by hand stays possible at any time.
A single pocket-sized controller drives both heads over thin white flat cable, ending in one Matter device with two window-covering tiles.
Matter runs over your own network (Thread or Wi-Fi). No account in the cloud is needed to operate the blind after commissioning.
Matter ecosystems
| Ecosystem | Tilt support |
|---|---|
| Apple Home | Working tilt (reported well by Matter testers) |
| Home Assistant | Working tilt (cover entity); best for automations |
| Google Home | Partial — tilt maps to the Rotation trait; app UI coverage is still reported as partial by third-party testers |
| SmartThings | Unconfirmed — test before committing |
Tilt-only device type (Window Covering, 0x0202, tilt + position-aware tilt). Needs a Thread border router for the Thread variant, or Wi-Fi only for the Wi-Fi variant.
