Hands-On Tech 206 Transcript

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0:00:00 - Mikah Sargent
Coming up on Hands-On Tech. Let's take a look at how we can automate and sort of combine control of multiple roller shades in a home. Stay tuned.

Hello and welcome to Hands-On Tech, or welcome back. If you've been here before by now. If you have been here before, you know how this works. I've got a question that I'm going to answer, a question from one of you. This question comes in from Kevin, who writes:

I have four remotes for four shades. Can I use some sort of automation so that I can use my phone via Wi-Fi to talk to these four roller shades? Here are the remotes. I do not know if they use radio or IR to communicate. So Kevin has included an image showing these remotes and it looks like there's a different kind of remote for a different device and Kevin had noted that some of them are the same. This is a picture of two of the four, and the remaining two are similar to the square one, which I'm going to assume is the one on the left, as it has a sort of square at the top of it. In any case, I do notice that the one remote in the image on the right has a black bar across what looks like the top of the remote, although it's facing toward us, and that would suggest that there's some IR. And so in that case, I do believe that these remotes are probably probably IR. What that means is just like a standard remote control, by the way, as an aside, just like a standard remote control, by the way, as an aside, it turns out that before remotes were IR, before we used infrared to control a television, there was this clever, clever technology where it's almost like the clapper for lights back in the day, where you could clap and turn the lights on, clap, turn the lights off. It would listen. And this is another aside. If you've ever heard your grandparents, your parents, perhaps even you, maybe your great grandparents, whomever call the remote the clicker, there's more to just it being called the clicker than it being called the clicker, because it's you know, you press the button, you click the button.

No, there was a little listening device inside of older televisions that listened for the click of the remote, and if it was the right frequency then it would know I'm trying to turn the channel to a different channel or I'm trying to turn off the television. And so it would actually be. There was no wireless communication taking place between the remote or the clicker and the television, but instead was just a sound. So cool, and JammerB in the chat, which hello, JammerB says before your time, Mr. Sargent, absolutely. And then says I was amazed by them as a kid, I'm amazed by them as an adult, that that is a thing that they did. Like that's cooler to me than I are, anyway. So the problem with those is if something else made a click or made a sound that was similar in frequency to that, then it would also cause the TV to do the thing you know change the channel or whatever it happened to be. So that's why they kind of one reason why they switched away from the clicker to IR. Of course, ir then enabled more ability to have multiple, you know, buttons and all that kind of thing. Anyway, very cool Clickers, awesome.

So let's get back to the question from Kevin. So it appears these are IR and that suggests that you can use an IR blaster, that you can connect to your Wi-Fi and have that kind of control your roller shades. So here's the thing. There's one option, which is one that I have used the Aqara Hub M2. It's a little pricey, not on its own, but we're going to get into kind of the caveats here. So the Aqara Hub M2 not on its own, but we're going to get into kind of the caveats here. So the Aqara Hub M2 has an IR blaster built into it. It's actually, I think it's nearly 360 IR blaster. And so if you have, you know, like a great room and it's got your television and it's got a fan that has an IR receiver and you've got roller shades, you've got this and that and the other, you put that hub in that room and you can suddenly program it to control everything and then, via an app, you're able to turn on the TV and hit the lights and the fan and whatever else is controlled. Wonderful, that's one way to pull this off.

But my concern is these roller shades are probably not all in the same space, right? You've probably got one in a bedroom, you've got one in another bedroom, you've got one in the living room, wherever they happen to be. So an IR blaster in one room is probably not going to be able to hit all of those spots, and that is where I recommend a different device called the Broadlink RM4 Mini. So I have used one of these in the past. I don't use a tower fan anymore, but I used to use a tower fan and I got tired of this little silly remote that was connected to it, that it would always get lost somewhere. So I got one of these Broadlink devices and they're sort of a little cylinder that is, I don't know, less than the height of a tube of chapstick, but far, far larger. There we go, thank you. And if you're, if you're just listening, then you'll just have to keep imagining.

But it is an IR blaster and what it does is it? You can program it to do what you needed to do. This is $30. So it's much less of an investment placing one of these in each of the spaces where these roller shades are than if you were to go the way of the Akara, where you've got one of those hubs in each of the spaces. That's much more expensive.

Now I've linked to the Aqara Hub M2 package If we could go back up to the top of that page, john. So the one that I linked to is the Aqara or, excuse me, is the Broadlink RM4 Mini, but click on the one to the right there. So you see, like the two options, yeah, you can get the device by itself for $25.99. The one that I linked to and will link to in the show notes is a little bit more expensive, but it comes with a cord that is the power cord for it, that has a humidity and temperature detector built into the cord, and so you get this extra information. So suddenly this becomes a better investment, right? Because now you know the humidity and temperature in a room. Now, suddenly, this can not just be for roller shades, but it could also be for if you do have a fan in that room that is IR connected, right, so you can say, if the temperature drops below this, lift up the shades to let some sunlight in, but also run the fan or whatever it happens to be. So I think it's worth kind of that extra little bit of money.

But get one of these, put them in each of the rooms, connect them and then suddenly, yes, you can control them all from your phone via Wi-Fi, because these aren't internet connected on their own. Obviously you're not going to be able to just, you know, use shortcuts to somehow pull this off. So you do need to get something like the Aqara Hub M2, which I would recommend if all of your roller shades are in one room, but again, I doubt that's the case. So that's where the Broadlink RM4 Mini, which is much less expensive, would come in handy, because you can get one of these for each of the rooms that it's in, connect them all together and then do it that way. There is also another option, which is a company called SwitchBot. I should note both Aqara A-Q-A-R-A and SwitchBot offer these things I'm about to talk about, which are sort of individual motors for roller shades. So you would replace the and it would depend, of course, on your roller shade situation. If it's built into the mechanism at the top, this isn't going to be doable. But if you've got something where you know the chain on the roller shade is being powered by some sort of little motor, it's possible that you could replace it with one of these. That would do it for you, and so then it's just one step less and you're not having to worry about IR. You would connect one to each of the spots to your roller shades, and then you'd be able to rock and roll from there. So a few options for you, kevin, in terms of being able to connect all of these shades. I would love to hear what you end up doing, what you end up going with and if you need some more assistance on that.

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All right, Kevin has written in with the second part of Kevin's question. It says also I have a token printer connected on a power line network I need to get rid of. I have eero's throughout the house, but how do I connect this remote printer? So, Kevin, this is once again kind of a lesson for all of us in detail, because in one part you talk about it being a token printer. I can't tell if you mean token in terms of it is a you know, everybody's got that printer sort of token printer and oh, here's mine. Or if you mean it prints some sort of token which would be cool. I'm kind of curious about that. And you talk about it being on a power line network and you're trying to get rid of the power line network, but then you call it a remote printer. And that makes me go okay, is this a printer that is outside of the home or do you just mean that it's in a part of the home? That's a little bit you know away from other things. If it's in a part of the home that's away from other things, I would suggest considering testing it with your eero setup. You say you have eeros throughout your house, so it should work with your eeros, so it should work with your eero's.

Now, if you're having trouble figuring out how to access the wireless functionality of this printer, that is going to depend on the printer and the manufacturer and that kind of a thing. Here's some advice that I'll provide. If it's connected via power line networking, then you are probably using some sort of well. You would have to be using some sort of adapter that is providing for the power line networking, which means that the printer is connected to your network, which means that you can look at your network information, either in the eero app or in the app that came with the Powerline network adapter, to figure out the IP address of that printer. Once you know the IP address of the printer, open up any computer type in the IP address of that printer and in almost every case you're going to be taken to the printer's sort of built-in server homepage, which will give you access to all of the tools that that printer has, all the features that that printer has. Another option for you if you are having trouble finding the IP address is if you have a Mac. On your Mac you can go to printers, you can go to printers and scanners and pull up that specific printer, and every single one of those is going to give you a button you can press that says take me to the printer homepage. And so, even if it's not, for some reason, the IP address isn't taking you there your operating system will have that direct link to the printer's homepage. From there you can go through the process of setting it up on your network.

Now, if it isn't a wireless printer, if it is a wired printer, then what I would recommend in that case is getting an eero, getting a uh, getting an eero. That is or let's. Let's talk about what your eero setup looks like. Right, if you have um, full on eero's throughout your home, as opposed to the beacons that just plug directly into the wall, then those full on eero uh devices have ethernet ports in the back of them, and so I would recommend, if you're going to go this way, taking one of those eero's that you have throughout the home, or if you, you know, want to afford to do so buying another one, placing it close enough to the printer that you can run the Ethernet from the back of the printer into the that eero there, and it essentially serves as a local network switch to connect the printer to the wireless network, which is then connected throughout the rest of your network. So let me explain how I would do it in that situation.

I would keep my eero set up the way that it is now and again. I'm assuming that you don't have the beacons because the beacons are very old, so you probably have multiple same looking eeros throughout your home. I would run an ethernet cord from the back of the eero that's closest to where the printer is run, one from the back of it and near the printer I would have a little network switch like a four port network switch or five port network switch Um, I like the TP link ones uh, the TP link option there are lots of options out there and have that plugged in. I would run the printer into the switch, have an the ethernet cord that's running from the nearest eero into that switch and then now, if I want to plug any other Ethernet things into it, I can. In a perfect world you would actually be running Ethernet cords from your main eero to those other remote eeros, because that provides what's called wireless backhaul.

But we're not going to get into all of that. So, Kevin, there are lots of options for you. If you're going to tell me that your remote printer is truly remote, like it's at your office or something like that, we'll have to figure that out separately. But I think, based on you saying I just want to get rid of this power line networking which amen who doesn't? That's the way to make that happen. So thank you for writing in with your question. That is going to bring us to the end of this episode of Hands-On Tech. If you have questions, hot@twit.tv is how you get in touch. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of Hands-On Tech. I'll catch you again next week for another episode. Bye-bye.