The MorningRope: Automate Your Curtains by dfrenkel

Last crawled date: 2 years, 11 months ago

Do you struggle waking up in the morning?
Do you have a south-facing window and want to save money on cooling?
Do you know someone who is disabled and has difficulty moving around?
Do you ever want instant privacy in your home?
Do you hate when people look into your home at night?
Do you wish people couldn't tell when you were on vacation?
The MorningRope will help with all of that. It is a smart curtain opener that automatically opens and closes your curtains for you.
The device is completely hidden so it looks great in any home, and uses off-the-shelf curtains that can be purchased for $18 on Amazon.
It will open all your home curtains every morning, letting light into your home and waking you up.
Use Alexa, and it will close your curtains in 5 seconds whenever you need instant privacy.
NOTE: Requires Home Assistant
It figures out the exact sunrise and sunset time of each day and keeps your curtains closed when it gets dark, no matter what time it is.
It will change your life.

How It Works
It works by pulling a string that is connected to each curtain panel.
There are two buttons on the motor that let you open/close it via pushbutton.

Up close of how the string is pulled by the motor.

On the rod, you attach a pulley to both wall mounts using a zip tie (#1 & #4). You then attach a carriage to the back of each curtain panel (#2 & #3). The string is connected to the pulley and carriages (red dashed line) and causes them to open and close as the motor turns.

Smart Home Integration
The firmware is built in ESPHome, so it requires Home Assistant to control this device. The great thing is that everything here is local. Follow these instructions to learn how to set up in Home Assistant.
How to Build
There are two ways you can build this.
1) Buy a kit that includes the hardware
2) Purchase all hardware on your own.
The kit price starts at $34 USD
Purchasing everything on your own starts at $150 USD
Many of the parts are from McMaster-Carr, so if you only need 1 screw, you need to purchase a box of 100, which is why it's more expensive to buy on your own.
You can purchase a kit from here that includes just the string, screws, and PCB. Then you can buy your own motor and power supply from Amazon which keeps the price low.
If you want to buy everything yourself, here are the parts:
String 1
Zip Tie 2
PTFE Tube 1
M3 Wing Nut 2
M3 Clamp Screw 4
Plastic Carriage Screw 3
Pulley 3
Pulley Screw Double 1
Pulley Screw Single & Clamp 3
Wall Mount Screw 1
Wall Mount Nut 1
Wall Anchor 2
Wall Anchor Screw 2
PCB Screw 4
Motor M3 Screw Short 2
Motor M3 Screw Long 2
M3 Nut Square 6
Clamp Bearing 2
Clamp Holding Screw 1
Pulley 1
PCB 1
Motor 1
Power Supply 1