Google Home^® Controls Shade & Blind Motors

Google Home^® Controls Blinds & Shades With Voice Commands
(by Adrian Biffen, GM, Nov 2017)

It has long been our policy to support as many home automation and IoT systems as possible, and we often get requests for a method of using Google Home^® voice commands to control our shade/blind motors, our skylight/window openers.

The Google Assistant is the cloud based voice control system that is provided with the Google Home automation interface that is sold by Google.

Control Motors with Z-Wave

Z-Wave is a commonly used digital radio protocol for controlling blind motors and other devices.

Most automation hubs have a Zwave radio, and it can be used to send control signals to our Z-Wave group controller.

These automation hubs also usually have integration with Google home and Alexa, and this can be a very easy way to use voice control with our motorized blinds, window/skylight openers, and drapery motors.

Whether you have 2 or 200 motors, our powerful group controller can activate all the motors in the group simultaneously. For more information, please see detailed information about our Z-wave motor controller at our manufacturing division (NodeSwitch Controls).

Control Motors with RF

Our motors can also be used in conjunction with our BroadLink^® RF-IR hub, using the free, independent Home Assistant System (HASS) running on the Raspberry Pi platform.

Please Note: The Google Assistant is the cloud based AI voice control system; it is NOT the same as the Home Assistant system (HASS) running on the Raspberry Pi. HASS is a powerful home automation program that runs on the Pi as a web server, in the background.

The HASS system also has an "All In One" installer for the Pi that makes it super easy to get that system up and running. As previously mentioned, it runs in the background as a web server that you can access with any browser enabled device on your local wifi router network (with external worldwide access, if you really want that). You can still use the Pi to send mail, surf the net, run spreadsheets, etc. We think this is amazing bang for the buck!

The smart hub from BroadLink^® (HA-RFIRW-5V) has quickly become our hub of choice in terms of cost and flexibility. One of the most important features is its ability to "learn" RF radio commands (and IR commands for your TV and audio systems), which means it can directly control our radio motors. It is also fully supported by the HASS system, and/or it can be operated with a phone app (Android or IOS).

This hub can operate our older R series blind & shade motors, our newer G series motors, our drapery motors, our skylight/window openers, our smart film, and many other devices, such as fans, LED lighting, etc. It can even learn x10 radio commands, in case you have a few of those old modules in your home.

Control Audio, TV Screens, Projectors

The BroadLink^® hub can also learn standard IR codes too, for controlling all your Netflix streaming, TV, Bluray, DVD and other media systems. You can very easily set up a sequential process, with the ability to chain events to a single button press.

For example, if you have a media room with a home theater system, you could do the following with a single button press: dim lights, lower blackout blinds, turn projector on, turn lights off, deploy projector screen, activate audio system, select satellite feed, etc.

You can transfer your remote control system to other phones by cloning it to any other phone or tablet on the local network. If you have an old unused phone or tablet, you can quickly convert it to a sophisticated remote control. The app will work on older phones without a SIM card, as long as the WiFi is functional.

You can integrate Google Home^® with your BroadLink^® hub; here are some relevant links:

Node-RED Supports Google Assistant on the Raspberry Pi

Google Assistant has a node that can be used with Node-RED. We will be evaluating that capability, but for now you can see how we configured the BroadLink hub to work with Amazon's Alexa™ (it's a very similar process):

using the Node-RED visual design program (with Alexa™) for blind control and window openers

Home Assistant Supports Google Home (runs on Raspberry Pi, Linux, Mac, Windows)

The BroadLink phone and tablet apps are powerful and user friendly, but you can take it even further and add support for other systems like Google Home^®, Alexa^®, Wink, SmartThings, Vera^®, Wemo^®, etc.

Please take a look at the Home Assistant home automation system running on a Raspberry Pi. It is an excellent system that runs on any platform (Linux, Mac, Windows) and supports literally hundreds of devices, including our blind motors and skylight/window openers via the BroadLink^® plug-in.

The Home Assistant system makes it easy to integrate Google Home because it creates a bridge between Google Home and the BroadLink hub. It uses a clever emulation of the Hue system, which has native support in Google Home.

Companion articles in this series:

BroadLink^® Smart hub for blind motors: Introduction

BroadLink^® IFTTT example: rain sensor for closing skylights.

BroadLink^® IFTTT example: temperature and light sensitive blinds and shades