Bluetooth Blind Driver

A Bluetooth blind driver is the cheap way into motorised blinds, and it replaces nothing you own. If your roller, Roman or zebra blind is opened by pulling a beaded chain, this Zemismart unit clips onto the wall beside it and takes over the pulling. Nothing is cut, nothing is drilled into the blind, and it comes with you when you move house.

• What a Bluetooth blind driver can and cannot do
• What you get instead: price and no dependencies
• Fitting it to a chain blind
• When to spend more than this

What a Bluetooth blind driver can and cannot do

Bluetooth reaches about three metres. That is the whole story, and everything else follows from it. The app works while you are standing in the room. It does not work from the next room, from the office, or from the car outside.

There is no cloud schedule and no Alexa or Google unless you add a Bluetooth hub separately. If the words close the blinds before I get home are anywhere in your plan, this is the wrong one of the three.

What you get instead: price and no dependencies

Nothing else has to be bought. No bridge, no gateway, no hub, no account that has to stay logged in. Buttons on the unit itself work with no phone involved at all, which means the blind still opens when your phone is flat and when the internet is down.

For one blind in a room you are usually sitting in, that is not a compromise. It is the sensible answer, and you are not paying for a hub you will never use.

Fitting it to a chain blind

Roller, Roman, zebra and day-night blinds all qualify as long as a beaded chain or cord loop operates them. The driver goes on the wall beside the blind with screws or the adhesive pad supplied, and the chain sits over the toothed wheel on top.

Interchangeable gears handle the different bead and cord sizes in plastic or metal, so it fits most of what is already hanging in Dar. Set the upper and lower limits once and it stops in the same place every time.

Power comes from a rechargeable battery inside the unit, charged by cable. The solar panel is not included and is an optional extra, whatever older listings for this product may say. Ask us if you want one quoted.

When to spend more than this

Only for reach. If you want the blind to move on a schedule while the house is empty, or to answer a voice command, the Wi-Fi driver ships with the bridge that makes it happen and is the obvious upgrade.

If the house already runs a Zigbee mesh, the Zigbee driver joins it and stays off your router. Otherwise this one does what it says. All three are Zemismart hardware and clip on identically, so you can start here and move up later without redoing the mounting.