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Not sure if this is the proper community, apologies if not. I'm wanting to start a DIY project at home to automate my blinds through Alexa. I'm comfortable with the tech from the microcontroller up, but it's been quite a while since I've interfaced with any motors.

I'm leaning towards brushless motors, mostly because I'm somewhat familiar with them. I need something that can spin several rotations, something that I can keep track of position (or better, power required for rotation so that if it gets > some value, I know the blinds are fully shut or closed due to that resistance), and ultimately something somewhat energy efficient so I don't have to change the AA batteries every week.

Any suggestions to get me going would be greatly appreciated.

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    $\begingroup$ What kind of a performance do you expect from shutting/opening the blinds ? I.e. how accurate do you want the motors to stop? You might want to add this to the question, to receive more focused answers. $\endgroup$
    – Gürkan Çetin
    May 26, 2018 at 17:19
  • $\begingroup$ I don't care too much about accuracy, but I do want to be white to measure where they've stopped to some extent $\endgroup$
    – MrDuk
    May 26, 2018 at 20:38

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You will probably need a motor with lots of torque to run your blinds. Factoring in that you also want to track position, a brushless motor is not the best solution for this problem. You are best off using a stepper motor. They have lots of torque and can continuously rotate and track position.

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