Somfy Motorized Blinds (Z-Wave)

@alexking Might have some input on how to adjust the device type to work with partially opening the shades - I know he already created the SmartThings Mini Blinds for Arduino device type a few months back (see GitHub repo here).

Thanks for any help!

That’s what led me to consider Arduino, heh.

Is there any guides available that say exactly what needs to be purchased from Somfy to get up and running? What about a wiring guide? I’m in the middle of building my house, and I want to try and decide if I want to have some automated shades/blinds control. It’s really hard to figure out what is needed to get up and running by reading their website.

@flashburn Any Lowe’s Hardware can help quote you the equipment as I believe Somfy is distributed by Bali Window Blinds (who provide Lowe’s their blinds/curtains). You may not choose to go with Lowe’s, but at least you’ll know exactly what equipment you’ll need. The key is to get motors that support RTS, the Somfy wireless protocol.

hey matt,

how can i get in touch with you about the zrtsi ?

@doggy I just sent you a private message. If anyone else is interested in getting one of these Z-Wave bridges at a huge discount, please just PM me.

Best,
Matt

1 Like

Hi everyone.

I’ve successfully configured SmartThings to control my Somfy blind motors.

  • I’ve attached a video that shows 7 blinds working across 4 groups (left, front, right and all).
  • I’ve attached the code for two custom device types, the Somfy Controller (ZRTSI) and Somfy Blinds.
  • I can close the blinds or set the Somfy ‘my’ preset value (I"ve set my blinds ‘my’ value to a level/ open/ see through state)
  • I’m using one ZRTSI ($68 from Bali blinds) to interface between SmartThings Z-Wave and Somfy RTS.

Current limitations:

  • I’ve configured two states, ‘closed’ and the Somfy ‘my’ preset value. ‘Closed’ will move horizontal blinds to the down position, or will extend roller/ roman blinds to the full down position. An ‘open’ state exists in the code; however I’m not utilizing it at this point.

  • The app doesn’t poll the status of the blinds. If I change the blinds using the Somfy remote itself then SmartThings will not receive the updated state. The problem: ZRTSI will return ‘on’ (or 0xFF) when the motor is fully retracted – with horizontal blinds this means the slats are closed and pointing up. ZRTSI returns ‘off’ (or 0x00) when the motor is fully open – with horizontal blinds this means the slats are again closed and pointing down. ZRTSI doesn’t seem to return a state for any intermediary values, and doesn’t allow us to set one either (ie. 50% open). However Somfy will respond to a ‘dimmerStop()’ command which it interprets as the ‘my’ preset value.

I hope this helps! And I’d appreciate any input in improving the code to overcome the limitations.

8 Likes

Would love to find out more - email me eclipxe [at] gmail.com

How did you get it for $59? Did you get it with your blinds in some sort of package?

I am really struggling with my choice of blinds right now. I have a Lutron system for the lights (RAdiora2) so I have considered that (knowing that Lutron support may be forced into SmartThings soon becuase Alex, David Eun, and I all have them :smile: But it seems very costly.

We also have done some Somfy intetration (but it isn’t as good as what folks like @chriswood1001 have done here.

My biggest issues is that my wife really wants both bottom up and top down functions and that just seems much harder to find. I see Hunter Douglas with something. I have even seen ZigBee motor controls which are appealing.

Anyway I am mostly just ranting. Hoping to try out some of this in any case. Thanks!

I bought Somfy motorized blinds from Bali blinds, through a Costco deal and was able to add the ZRTSI for $68. I also price compared with Home Depot and saw the same price: http://homedepot.baliblinds.com/

If you go into Home Depot you may be able to order just the ZRTSI without a blinds order; however you can’t seem to do it yourself through their website.

Hope that helps.

Hi Chris,

First off–thanks for your awesome work! I just installed motorized roller shades in my condo and am trying to set everything up. You mention that there is an “open” state in the code, but you aren’t utilizing it. I’m not a programmer, so can you give some insight into how I can activate that? Ideally, I would like to be able to set the shades to “open,” “closed,” and the “my” setting if possible. Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Maybe I should clarify my question. Should I be seeing a “refresh” icon when I look at the shade settings? I only see the option to turn it on (which goes to the My setting) and to turn it off (which puts the shade all the way down).

Another data point for this topic… I’m currently using the dimmer function to control my shades (which only supports “on”/“up” and “off”/“down”) along with the ZRTSI device. I have 13 shades to control and have set them to all go down (off) at 10:30 pm. The first night, all but one shade fired. Last night, 3 shades didn’t fire. I’m not sure if this is related to all of the signals being sent at one time or what. I’d be interested in any advice/suggestions. I think I may stagger the times by a few minutes and see if it makes a difference. (Also, fwiw, everything fired a little late anyway but I understand that’s been a bit of an issue as of late).

I only have 1 shade being controlled with the ZRTSI but it always responds instantly. How far is the ZRTSI located from your ST hub and from the motors it’s controlling?

The ZRTSI is about 10 feet from the hub. The shades are are farther away, but I haven’t had any issues with the farthest shades. Oddly, it was some of the closer shades that didn’t fire.

I have never used shades but have you tried grouping them? Have your actions trigger 4-5 shades at a time rather than all in one shot. Worth trying. On a separate issue we are speculating time outs in cases where we are trying to turn on/off 13 hue devices using a single action which leaves out a bulb or two. Geko also faced something like that (not on hues though). So, basically long running actions which may hit 20 secs or so.

This may be unrelated but worth keeping an eye on.

Also, I am wild guessing at this time.

Hi Matt,
Do you still have some discounts on the ZRTSI controller? If so, I’m definitely interested.

Thanks.
Russ

I’ve seen similar issues with turning on/off 10+ GE Link bulbs where one or two sometimes get missed, so another data point to suggest large groups might cause issues.

I concur! This is a new word I learnt. :slight_smile: