Google Assistant now has native support for smart blinds. The update was first spotted by Android Police, which points out that although native support for blinds has technically existed for certain brands like the Lutron Caseta and Neo Smart Blinds, but an official API hadn’t yet been implemented. The Google Assistant documentation for developers now has a section for blinds, which should help more brands add smart functionalities compatible with Google Assistant.
The documentation reads: “Blinds can be opened and closed, and various types of blinds are supported such as venetian (opens in one direction), panel or vertical (may open either left or right), and top-down bottom-up (may open either up or down).” Now you can ask Google directly to open and close blinds, without having to ask Google to open another service to do it.
The added support comes weeks before Ikea’s smart blinds are set to arrive in the US on April 1st. They’ll have Alexa, HomeKit, and Google Assistant control and integration, and are set to be priced in the mid-$100 range — much cheaper than most smart blinds, which cost around $300-$600. Between native Google Assistant support and Ikea’s smart blinds, consumers will soon have more choices than ever for which smart blinds they want to go with.
By Dami Lee
Marc 13, 2019
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