So now finally, I had the opportunity to factory reset one of the Pico Shutter devices, and give it a fresh start.
And … it still does that jumping back and forth between “100” and actual percentage in ten minute intervals, just like it did before. It also keeps doing that with the generic driver, and it also keeps doing it when in “Slats” mode where it exposes a secondary status (the angle of the slats).
Also still no progress with the contradictory data on whether 0 is fully open or fully closed. Even the presentation contradicts itself - hit the “close” button, watch how it says “opening” while the actual physical blinds are closing, until the status says “0 - open”.
[Also still unresolved: The contradiction in wiring between the Quick Start Guide and the full manual. The full manual also contradicts itself regarding which way is Open.]
Needless to say how pathetic this is. Am I the only person in the world who bought these?
Quick Start Guide - this is how I wired mine. Local control is the right way round, but the generic “Zigbee Window Treatment” driver has everything reversed (see footnote). Aeotec Edge driver behavior see above.
Also, 0% is Open and 100% is Closed, even though this is Lift Percentage where the word would suggest 100% lifted is all the way up, no? The apps [SmartThings, Alexa, Google Home] all think 0% is open, although while driving there the status says “Closing”.
Now if only the Aeotec driver would implement the “direction is reversed” config bit, then one could at least with roller shades use the generic driver and avoid this mess altogether. With slats blinds you’re screwed either way.
I still have the same problem.
Two weeks ago, I reinstalled and rewired everything: no improvement.
I really don’t understand why this issue isn’t being investigated.
Last night I noticed that my windows blinds didn’t auto-close at sunset, and they didn’t auto-open at sunrise either.
What happened? The “Pico Shutter Generic” driver got updated to 2026-02-09…, and it does some of the things better than the previous release:
“Settings” finally has “Motor Direction” - normal or reversed
The constant flipping from X% to 100% in the device event log has finally stopped. There are percentage updates when the blinds actually move, and then silence.
So I can finally drop the workaround that you must not actually go to 100% ever, for it just wouldn’t do it in the moment it falsely reports 100%.
There seems to be agreement between the hardware and the UI that 0% is open and 100% is closed.
For my wiring that is according to the Quick Start Guide (see above), I had to set Motor Direction to Reversed. The local buttons still map correctly, no change needed on these.
No update without borkage though …
The event log does not produce “Closing…” or “Opening…” entries anymore, and also no “open”, “closed”, “partially open” position reports.
Consequently, the app UI presentation has the percentage, but the string always says “partially open”.
The “Close” and “Open” buttons do nothing - not a UI issue, for sending the “open” and “close” commands from my.smartthings/advanced also does nothing.
Google Home still thinks 0% is closed, and Alexa also puts “opening percentage” and voice command “open [device]” goes for the 100% setting.
This is in alignment with what the Pico’s Advanced Manual says, where percentage values are “Lift Percentage” where 100% lift would be all the way up, no?
Device firmware has not been updated, still 0108.
Just to see whether it makes the latter two issues go away, I shall trigger auto-calibration when I get home.
I shall also revisit the generic Zigbee Window Treatment driver while I have Motor Direction on Reversed, just to see whether there is a combination that gets everything right.
So … update. Further findings after playing with the new driver a bit.
The “Motor direction” setting actually does nothing. Normal or Reverse does not change which way the motor turns when pushing a local switch, and it also does not change whether a higher percentage moves up or down.
After auto-calibration, the “open” and “close” commands still do nothing.
100% reads Closed and 0% reads Open, in opposition to what Google Home and Alexa do, also in opposition to the device’s own manual.
Meanwhile, the generic “Zigbee Window Treatment” driver has been updated too, but with no improvements to the previous status:
Open and Close commands are swapped.
Status report jumps back and forth between correct percentage and false 100% in ten-minute intervals.
At least this driver thinks 100% is open and 0% is closed - even though the motor moves the same direction, the percentages are reversed from what the Pico driver reports!
Google Home and Alexa think 100% is open and 0% is closed.
Dear driver developers: This isn’t hard. It’s been two years and this still is a grade A mess where not even the most basic functionality works right.
I’ve offered it back then and I’ll repeat, I’m here and ready to assist in debugging this.
At least it’s not jumping between 100% and correct-state anymore, so percentage routines now work properly. But now percentages are the only thing that works, and they are the wrong way round.
edit: Just found this in the edge developer docs, confirming that 100% is supposed to be read as “open”:
device operation and percentages reported in the log are now as expected,
local switch operation is fine,
the buttons in the app UI work correctly.
Alexa voice commands work the right way around.
Google Home shows “Open / 100%” when the blinds are open.
The one remaining thing to fix is that the text messages in the log are still reversed.
Let’s still mind this is with the switch wiring scheme from the User Guide (local switch S1 is Down, S2 is Up) and the motor wired to match that. The Engineering spec has it the other way around.
Whoever at Aeotec apparently reads this and improves things in the background - THANK YOU! - and please keep it up, we’re almost there.
The Aeotec channel’s “Pico Shutter Generic” driver updated again, and this one now works perfectly fine -
percentage status reports do not jump back and forth between X and 100%
there are new controls to (1) swap the Open and Close actions and (2) invert percentage reports
string type events in motion (“opening…” and “closing…”) are now correct, and so are the steady state strings (“Open”, “Closed”, “Partially Open”)
The new settings compensate for the contradictory wiring instructions -
If wired according to User Guide, enable “Invert Open/Close Commands” and disable “Invert Position Reporting”.
If wired according to Engineering Specification, do the opposite: Disable “Invert Open/Close” and enable “Invert Position Reporting”.
(Either one of the inversions needs to be active, for the device firmware itself has the percentage reporting the wrong way round vs. its own open/close commands. Device firmware did not update btw, still 0108.)
The “Motor Direction” item is back, but still does nothing - it will be needed only for those people who during installation did not check motor direction vs. local physical switches.
The logs are slow to catch up when this many events are reporting in. This is because the movement is local, but the logs go to the cloud and then back into your History (“Verlauf”) tab.
The switch configuration is about your physical switches. They may be momentary buttons or toggle switches; the device changes its reaction based on the type. With a Toggle type switch, the motor keeps going as long as the switch is On, and will stop when you flip it back to Off; with a momentary, the motor will start when you push but will not stop when you release, only when you push again.
The device tries to auto-detect the physical switch type when first used. You can set the type manually if this didn’t detect correctly.
I can’t figure it out…
But I think it’s my fault
How do you calibrate the roller shutter?
Press external button 1 three times or press external button 1 six times?
Or not at all?
I have 5 roller blinds and none of them do what I want them to:
either they don’t go down or they go down 10 minutes later, or they don’t go up or they go up a few hours later.
It’s really strange!
Auto-calibration happens after you first installed it. (Blinds need to be Up/Open while you install.) The first time you push Close, it will drive all the way down, detect the motor not turning anymore (audible relay click), drive all the way up, detect again.
You can retrigger this by clicking local switch 1 (Down if you wired as per the Quick Start Guide) six times really quickly (in less than two seconds). Again, blinds need to be up before you start this, and you need to be really quick AND count right.
This however is nothing to do with your observed communication delays. Is your Zigbee network good, do you see similar delays with other devices? (The Pico devices are Zigbee forwarders, so they contribute to improving the network - but of course they themselves need a reliable connection.)
Basically shutter, blind and awning motors have always needed the calibration for the upper and lower endpoints. The motor has no way of knowing how much tube roll length is needed nor the height of the window/terrace in question. I presume it still is the case, although I stand to be corrected if this has changed.
Basically shutter, blind and awning motors have always needed the calibration for the upper and lower endpoints. The motor has no way of knowing how much tube roll length is needed nor the height of the window/terrace in question. I presume it still is the case, although I stand to be corrected if this has changed.