Automated Smart Blinds System

I often sleep through regular audio alarms, so I wanted to build something that could use the morning sunlight to help wake me up instead. I decided to create my own hands-free automation system.

I engineered a fully autonomous smart blinds setup powered by an ESP32 microcontroller connected to a precision stepper motor. The motor assembly was securely mounted into a custom 3D-printed housing with integrated bearings sourced from Thingiverse.

By leveraging Sinric Pro, I bridged the ESP32 directly into the Amazon Alexa ecosystem and mobile app. This configuration allowed me to pass granular state commands, meaning the blinds could be set smoothly to exact custom percentages instead of simple binary open and close limits.

To solve this without upgrading to an expensive, bulky motor, I sourced a clever 3D-printed housing design featuring an integrated gear reduction system. By connecting the motor's small drive gear to a much larger gear assembly, the setup leverages mechanical advantage to drastically multiply the physical torque output.

To complement this physical gear advantage, I modified the ESP32 firmware to reduce the motor's operational speed. In stepper motor physics, slowing down the step pulse frequency allows the coils to fully energize, maximizing holding and driving torque. While the blinds open and close quite slowly, this dual hardware-software workaround successfully allowed a budget component to reliably get the job done.