I just installed a few Bali motorized roller shades (Somfy system). Pretty easy to connect to the SmartThings hub and control individually. SmartThings connected to Alexa and each blind can be controlled individually through Alexa with commands like open 50% etc. I want to be able to control all of them together.
I made a group all shades in Alexa and it opens all completely or closes them completely all together but doesn’t understand home or % open. Alexa says “All shades doesn’t support that”.
Is there a better way to group them in Alexa or can a single group be made in the smart things app?
You can accomplish this with WebCore. If blind x changes, capture change and set variable then send to blinds y,z, etc… I do this to keep my separate landscape lights in sync.
Thanks I was hoping I was just missing a setup step. If I can use Alexa to control one blind attached to a smart things hub to the position I want, why not a group of blinds?
Just be aware that when ST drops groovy from their platform… webcore will cease so using webcore at this point would only be temporary and you would need to find another option
@schale , I have Graber blinds, but they’re Somfy motors as well- so our experiences may be similar. Are your blinds RTS of Zigbee? Mine are RTS, so I needed the TaHoma hub or ZRTSI. I chose TaHoma because it handles far more channels. So blinds are connected to TaHoma hub, which is then a “Linked Service” into SmartThings, then to Alexa. Open & Close are the only commands that ST supports, but I can have the blinds stop at the MY position (does your remote have MY button?)
Now, Alexa can only support what ST feeds it (Open & Close), however…. What I’ve done is to create a ST Scene (NOT Routine- Routines won’t work), and in this Scene, all blinds go to the MY position.
Then I created an ALEXA Routine which runs the ST Scene. The Alexa Routine is triggered by “Alexa, Open all blinds halfway” and “Alexa, Close all blinds halfway”. This gives me exactly what you’re looking for, except that I can’t do % open/closed. Hope this helps.
@merrick777
I have sort of gotten it to work. I believe they are Zigbee and can be connected as a device directly to the Smart Things hub which connects to Alexa.
Grouping as all shades just allows full open or close.
However setting a routine in Alexa (and getting rid of the all shades group as it confuses her sometimes.)
And adding a verbal command like open front shades seventy percent (cant use numbers or the percent symbol) and adding the smart things devices one at a time which does allow percentage open for each shade does seem to work. luckily routines can be duplicated and modified so I now have All shades and Front shades at 10, 30, 50 (or open) 70 and 90%. Of course if you mis speak the exact verbal command she won’t get it right.
There should be a simpler way as without all this I could have just said open living room shade 1 (or other shade number) 70 percent and she would understand it.
I also like your use of an Alexa routine for the ST Scene. I didn’t think of that. I did make a home position scene in ST but had to say Alexa turn on open shades 50 percent which seemed odd.
Thanks
Yeah, I’d never want that, and my family would flip out if I had to “teach” them awkward phrasing. But if you do it the Alexa Routine way, you can craft whatever phrasing you’d like.
Yes, if you’re connecting directly to ST without ZRTSI or TaHoma- yours are Zigbee.
