Velux Active with Netatmo

It’s July, Velux now has a pre-order for their Active controller.

I don’t know a whole lot about it, but it appears to be a set of three devices… an internet bridge, an indoor climate sensor, and a physical switch that allows you to lock down the system (assuming this overrides any automation- which I think is interesting, since my current Velux wall controller allows for automated daily timing, but doesn’t have a specific security hard button. Did they recently decide that was a feature people needed?).

From their various movies and release info, it looks like this is their attempt to automate the skylight(s) based on outdoor temp/weather and indoor temp/humidity. You set up the triggers on a phone app.

Does anyone know if there is a hook for HA systems- and of course, specifically ST? Their customer service people did not know how to answer that question.

Any luck? I have been looking at the Active and KRF200 and really want to find a solution to control my 5 solar skylights + 1 solar shade.

I have a SmartThings hub controlling my home and a Netatmo weatherstation to monitor temperatures etc. As it also has two skylights I bought the Velux Active controls when they were released a few months ago. The installation was straighforward and the control works well but I am not aware of any integration with Smartthings or with the Netatmo weatherstation. I had successfully integrated the Netatmo weatherstation with ST, although as the ST app is useless at displaying graphs I use the Netatmo app to look at the temperature and CO2 etc. The Velux Active implements a daily “airing” routine based on CO2 level, opening the skylights automatically. This is overridden by the rain sensors on the skylights themselves as The VA has no knowledge of when it is raining.

Any further info on this? I have a KRF200 but would prefer a more elegant solution

As far as I can see the following applies. You might want to double check with Velux themselves.

Velux Active is the result of a collaboration between Velux and Netatmo. I get the impression the Netatmo portion is a gateway that translates the Velux io-HomeControl interface to a WiFi HomeKit solution. Velux Active does not support IFTTT. Velux Active does also support Google Assistant. Velux Active does not appear to support Amazon Alexa.

As the underlying Velux technology is using io-HomeControl it is in theory possible to link to a Somfy gateway which supports io-HomeControl. Likewise Velux seem to claim they can control some Somfy io-HomeControl blinds.

Therefore it might be possible to use a Somfy Tahoma gateway to talk to the Velux products and link the Tahoma gateway to Smartthings. The Tahoma gateway does support Alexa. There is a Tahoma integration to Smartthings listed in these forums.

I plan to get some Velux windows and way back before Velux Active switched to using Netatmo which supports HomeKit I had considered trying the Tahoma gateway since back then Somfy had indicated they were going to add HomeKit support to their Tahoma gateway. They have since cancelled that intention. :frowning_face:

It maybe that a Velux KLF 200 might be required instead of the Netatmo product or might be cheaper for you. The KRF 200 is as far as I can tell an io-HomeControl product and is the Velux remote, since this will work alongside the Netatmo modules it does suggest the Velux system is still using io-HomeControl along with the Netatmo products, hence my belief the Netatmo products are converting this to WiFi and HomeKit.

In case it has not already been mentioned a more complex option would be to link the Netatmo system to Home Assistant and then use MQTT to share it from Home Assistant to Smartthings.

I have not yet installed this, but my research suggests using the KLF 200 Home Automation Integration Kit and a z-wave relay like the Zooz 700 Series Z-Wave Universal Relay ZEN17 should allow integration with Smartthings.

I’ve got a couple of Velux Active windows and blinds, they don’t have Alexa integration, so if ST could connect that would be great. I don’t have the KIG 300 / KIX 300, as I don’t want app control, I mainly would like Alexa integration.

I can’t believe Velux has Google and HomeKit, but not Alexa?

On the SmartThings app, Netatmo is listed…can anyone confirm that they are able to connect their windows and blinds to ST this way? And if so, does it then work with Alexa?

Many thanks.

K.

Edit: There is a github which appears to have some code to interact with the Velux Active API;

I’m not technical enough to be able to achieve integration, but is it theoretically possible to use the above to interact with SmartThings?