Blind Me With SciEEnce

Waking up, particularly on a weekday morning to get ready for school or work, is a difficult task that many people do not enjoy. The room is dark with the blinds closed, making it difficult to roll out of bed and begin the day. As they wake up and begin getting ready, there is one significant question that can dictate how a person will dress, consider transportation, or address various home maintenance issues such as home temperature or blinds orientation: “What is the weather like outside?” Overall, positively influencing someone’s morning routine and addressing some of the issues previously stated can help their day start off on the right note.

Additionally, people spend time in the morning and evening opening and closing the blinds in their house. Many modern homes can have numerous windows or be situated in high or hard to reach places, making it difficult or impractical to adjust them. Furthermore, when people are away from their houses for long periods of time, such as on vacation, leaving the blinds permanently in either the open or closed position is an indicator to burglars that no one is home. Lastly, leaving blinds open during the day can allow the sun to heat a room past the thermostat set temperature, resulting in higher energy cooling costs. Conversely, leaving blinds closed early in the morning can lead to a missed opportunity for the home to be more efficiently heated at the beginning of the day.

Our project seeks to make the morning experience enjoyable and stress-free for the user by providing solutions to the problems listed above. The final product provides the user with accurate, real-time weather data, assists the user in getting out of bed due to the blinds illuminating the room with natural sunlight, and automates the user’s home by rotating the blinds based on user-preferences. The blinds operate via a rotational motor and will open or close at a specific position manually set by the user. Furthermore, the user can put all of the blinds in automatic mode, which sets the position based on the amount of incoming sunlight. The solar charged weather station placed outside the home will take various data readings throughout the day, analyze the corresponding data, and notify the user of the weather. It is equipped with various sensors needed to gather pertinent weather data including light, temperature, and humidity. The user-interface is provided in the form of an iOS mobile application, making the entire experience quite user-friendly. The blind controls and weather station interfaces are easily accessible and make for a much more pleasant and prepared morning. With this setup, problems with forgetting to adjust blinds, having windows in hard to reach places, or adjusting blinds while away at work or on vacation can be solved.