Choosing not to automate

Friday, December 19th, 2025 at 06:12pm

The two bedrooms (one I use as my study) in my house (technically a unit) have large windows that face west. This means that they get full afternoon sun which can be a problem in the warmer months. Fortunately there is canvas awnings which do the simple job of keeping the direct sun off the window glass, the first layer of managing temperature.

Despite being the “automatic” type these awnings are operated manually. This naming comes from the 1970s and the awnings are the type on a spring loaded roll that you pull down, then lock in place on arms that extend out. Pulling down on the awning will unlock the arms and the awning rolls back up.

The specific awnings I had were quite old, the canvas had been replaced by the previous owners and at least one mechanism looked like it was possibly original. Basically all the metal parts were either rusting or the paint was flaking off, so it had been on my list for a while to tidy it up in some way.

Until I recently went to use them for the first time this season and one of the plastic end caps disintegrated, making the awning unusable.

So now instead of of background job to tidy them up, I had the more urgent job of getting them replaced before the heat of summer kicked in. So I started to get quotes, but I didn’t just ask for one quote from each installer, I asked for the price to replace with the same automatic awning type and also for a price to replace with a motorized awning.

The quotes were fairly consistent: around $3k for automatic or around $6k for motorized. However that $6k did not include the cost of an electrician running power to each awning.

I also didn’t know what support the motorized awnings would have for integrating with home assistant, because if I was going to get something that could be automated, I wanted it integrated with what I already have.

Them I remembered something, with all the things I have done with home automation, almost everything have been monitoring. The only thing I control is the heating and cooling, mainly to have it on a schedule, and to turn it off if the exterior doors are open. So did I need to automate this? If I am home it is a simple task to pull them down, then later in the day (or if it rains or is very windy) go back out and raise them up.

It was also more than double (remember an electrician wasn’t included) the price, so I stayed with manually operated “automatic” awnings which were installed today:

Tagged with: home automation, house