Gizmodo Australia » blinds

These Window Blinds Are Better Than Most Views

Jesus Diaz — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:50:00 +0000

I like this idea very much: Instead of normal blinds to hide horrible views—and make horrible interiors—use one of these Better Views roller blinds. You can get night cityscapes showing Paris, Tokyo, Helsinki, and Stockholm.

Unfortunately, the 100% black polyester perforated roller blinds are limited to 1,000 units each, at $US475 each. A great idea by the talented Elina Alto, hopefully waiting to be mass produced by IKEA. [iukbox via Mocoloco]

Alarm Clock Hack Automates Window Blinds So You Rise and Shine

Kit Eaton — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:23:23 +0000

Mods don’t get much simpler and more useful than this: It’s an alarm clock that whisks open some window blinds when the alarm goes off, so the sun can tempt you out of bed. There’s a microcontroller to handle detecting the alarm signal and to drive a servo wired into the blinds, and some switches to override the alarm and open or close the blinds on command. Check the video of it in action.

Looks great, but frankly you’d need to wire a giant servo to my feet to drag me out of bed rather than use hack like this, but YMMV. [Hackaday]

Solar Vertical Lamp Blind Charges-Up in Daylight, Lights Rooms At Night

Kit Eaton — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:10:37 +0000

Sometimes a simple idea will make you react with ambivalence, but designers Yoon-Hui Kim and Eun-Kyung Kim’s Solar Vertical Lamp probably isn’t one of those. At its core it’s a solar-powered lighting system, but unusually it’s embedded in standard window blinds. During the day tiny solar panels charge up the individual lighting elements (LEDs?), and at night they light up. These guys have conceptualised the eco-friendly solution being an elegant lamp shape, but basically you could arrange the pixels however you liked. We wouldn’t recommend the legend “love palace” and a great big arrow pointing at your bed. [Yanko Design]