So… I just had to share this roller shade automation journey—because wow, it was a ride.
I got the Aqara roller shade driver E1 thinking it’d be a smooth plug-n-play dreamy smart home upgrade. Picture this: me sipping coffee while my shades glide open with the sunrise. Reality? More like me on a Saturday afternoon, cursing at the shade that refused to budge, while my cat judged me from the couch.
Spoiler alert: it finally works. But here’s the fun part—what actually worked wasn’t what I expected. I had to tweak the automations in the Aqara Home app because for some reason, the “sunrise” trigger via HomeKit was super hit-or-miss. I set up a combo of time-based and brightness-threshold triggers using the light sensor, and after a few test runs and scene adjustments… bingo.
Now the shades open slowly as natural light fills in, and close just before sunset—but only if I’m not home (presence detection kind of became the hero here). It feels next level.
Anyway, curious—anybody else tinker with roller shade automations? Any cool or weird setups out there? I’d love to hear (and possibly steal) some ideas.