Somfy Z-Wave to RTS Interface (ZRTSI) & Indigo?

I was two days away from ordering the 16 channel somfy serial to rts rf device and then the insteon 3rd party device to get it all working with my existing insteon devices and indigo, until I stumbled across this zwave device while trying to find cheaper motor parts.

This all in one device seems like the better choice. The fact zwave can use the cheaper range extenders if needed is very tempting. It looks like people were getting it working, wanted to know before dumping large amounts of money so I don't have to get up to close the shades, anything new one way or another?

I bought a bunch of insteon key pads already preparing for them to control the blinds, I have tons of insteon coverage and not a single zwave. Indigo should be able to translate commands from one to the other but there are always little things that come up to bite me. Anyone hit any major issues?

Indigo v6.0.12 is now available and supports the ability to send basic raw Z-Wave commands, either via the Interfaces -> Z-Wave menu or via the action panel.

I'm not sure if these are right, but try the following bytes for UP:

0x26, 0x04, 0x60, 0x00

DOWN:

0x26, 0x04, 0x20, 0x00

and STOP:

0x26, 0x05

the normal device ON and OFF commands work fine for me for UP and DOWN.

i tried using a z-wave send raw command using bytes "0x26, 0x05" as above. i can confirm that it works as STOP, i.e. when the shades were moving and this command was sent, the motors stop in their current position.

thanks for providing support for the send raw command. it would be great if this additional command got baked into a new z-wave device type or whatever so that these commands would be available for the ZRTSI device in indigo.

in the meantime, i'll do a bit more experimentation to see if i can also use the same send-raw command to invoke the somfy "my" button behavior as well.

Just tested the raw Up/Down/Stop commands in 6.0.12 and they appear to work for me! Nice!

Thanks Matt et al.!!!

Everything is working great, thanks for the up/down/stop codes! The stop button is also the my button, so if you send the stop command when the blinds are not in motion it goes to the programed saved position. So far no complaints, its working better than I was expecting. Will see how it goes when I install the other 12 blind motors.

question: do you need the somfy plugin for this to work or do you set up a generic z wave device?
Can you talk to the ZRTSI through a hue bridge instead of a z wave stick?
trying to determine the best route to add automated shades.
thanks.

quick answer to your question: no plugin is required to use ZRTSI with indigo to control somfy RTS devices.


here's a longer and more complete description of options for those interested in Indigo control of Somfy RTS devices:

ZRTSI is a Somfy-brand Z-wave to RTS bridge. It works out of the box with Indigo as a basic Z-wave device. It supports up, down, and stop/'My" buttons for up to 16 RTS channels. Your individual groups within Indigo will show up as "Motor Control Class A" devices for which ON/OFF commands correspond to shade Up/Down commands. This makes things simple, as you can for example open/close shades directly from control pages, include them in device groups, etc. I own a ZRTSI and I can report that it works pretty well. If you want to use the stop/My command (e.g. for making shades stop at an intermediate location), that involves sending a raw Z-Wave command currently.

Good points: a clean and elegant solution built using standard protocols and thus with no hacking/tweaking/wiring/soldering required. Setup takes a few minutes, but once complete, everything "just works". Complete "stand-alone" unit plugs directly into a wall outlet - no wires, no transceiver box, no power supply.

Not-so-good points: Quite expensive. There are range limitations of both Z-Wave and RTS signal propagation that may constrain placement. Ideally with 16 RTS channels available, you'd like to buy just one of these and have it work for all the RTS shades in a house. My experience was it worked fine for controlling multiple shades in a (large) room but was not fully reliable controlling shades a 30-40' away on the same floor apparently due to RTS signal strength problems. Also, I needed to add a Z-Wave repeater device to my network to get reliable comms between the box and my Indigo server with attached Z-Wave dongle. I have the Aeotec Z-Stick (but not the latest "Gen5") version and my server lives in the basement and my z-wave "mesh" is extremely sparse since my other devices are battery-operated sensors.

For completeness, in addition to ZRTSI, I'll mention some other options for somfy control from Indigo:

You can use an older I/OLinc-based solution. this is sold by smarthome (item 318276I) or you can build your own. it controls only a single RTS group. it provides only basic Up and Down controls. FYI, internally this is merely an I/OLinc wired to a somfy RF remote circuit board - a kluge. I have direct experience with this and i can say that it works quite well when you only need to control a single device or a set of devices together as a single group. Good: uses Insteon powerline/RF mesh for communication with Indigo, so placement far from your server will not be an issue assuming you already have other Insteon devices. RTS range is the same as for a basic Somfy handheld transmitter. Bad: expensive, only controls a single RTS group. Somewhat "inelegant" appearance with a plastic box dangling from an i/oLinc.

Somfy has a newer product out there called MyLink that provides IP (WiFi) to RTS bridging. This device is interesting - both newer and cheaper than ZRTSI. It can only control 5 RTS groups (vs 16 for ZRTSI). I have no direct experience with this device. It may be a more attractive option for some due placement flexibility, since it talks WiFi vs. Z-Wave. Works with its own app, the current trend these days. Getting this to work with Indigo would involve a plugin. It seems like it should not be difficult in theory, but would require either some documentation or reverse-engineering plus a bit of python and Indigo plugin development glue. Afaik, as of now, no such plugin yet exists and Somfy hasn't published any API documentation.

Somfy RTS uses 433MHz RF communication and this protocol can apparently be grokked by the latest RFSCOM transceivers. I know there is some Indigo plugin support for these transceivers (which are also useful for things like temperature probes). I have no first-hand experience with this, but from the chatter in the discussion forums, it appears that some are using it with Somfy. This approach looks promising in terms of cost and flexibility.

two updates to the summary that i posted previously, listing options for Indigo control of Somfy shades:

1. the ZRTSI units have dropped in price and can be found for in the ballpark of $100. (vs. $350-500+ previously). they are now being sold by several online blinds distributors, whereas they previously only seemed to be available from high-end integrators.

2. Somfy has a new product line that appears to have shades which understand Z-Wave. i believe these are called "AutoView". they are not backwards compatible with other Somfy products- that is, they do not respond to RTS protocol. this could represent a big improvement in cost, simplicity, and reliability, particularly for a first-item buyer. i have no direct experience with this product, so I don't know many details.

I assume Somfy will continue to offer RTS-based motorized products. However, if i look at vendors from whom I previously purchased products with Somfy motors (for example Bali Shades sold through Costco and Lowes), as of now, it appears that only the new AutoView Z-wave-based product is available and there is no way to order the old RTS products - at least not via their web order system.

Interesting, it'll be nice if the new autoview ones can report current position as the old ones couldn't, could they?

I have a new Bali shade on order with this new "autoview" Somfy motor. Interestingly, and for whatever reason, Bali refused to send me any information on this new motor, such as a spec sheet.

Ooh, interesting.


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Interesting, it'll be nice if the new autoview ones can report current position as the old ones couldn't, could they?

as far as i know, none of the existing shade automation systems report current position.

if you use something like a ZRTSI connected to Indigo as your sole means of control of your shades (with keypadLinc's, timers, triggers, or other Indigo-aware inputs), then you can (for the most part) use Indigo to keep track of current position. on the other hand, if you sometimes use the provided Somfy handheld remote or the Somfy DecoFlex keypad to control the shades, you lose that.

it is an interesting thought that when designing a new version of their controller with "integrated" Z-Wave, Somfy could make their shades report position changes via Z-wave and respond to a status request message to report current shade position. or even if they did not build in change reporting or responding to status/position request, it could be that all of the means of controlling the shades are also Z-wave controllers and so, in theory, if you register them as Z-Wave devices in Indigo, it can maintain accurate state monitoring.

i'll look forward to reports on how the AutoView models work.

Indeed that's how I've done it with the one wireless somfy blind I have in my house.. it's only controlled by indigo so in theory it's state should be the same as in indigo, but if a command was missed it ends up of sync. That said almost all the blinds in my house are wired using fibaro rollershutter or qubino flush shutter DC modules and they do report status so it's not a problem.

Do the new ones support any form of wired controls? I like all my devices to have controls next to the doors for the WAF.

Good info here: http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/ ... vh420cn0p7

And videos here:

https://youtu.be/8mTF8uF7jnE

https://youtu.be/7x3ngn8rUkk

ZWave info here:

https://youtu.be/EWK9w3aOb7k

It's a regular lighting dimmer in terms of control, so presumably does report state as well as respond to on-demand positions.


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And there's a chap at bottom of this thread on CastleOS (HA Ive never heard of) using it with Aeotec Zstick.

http://www.castleos.com/forum/topic918- ... o-rts.aspx

It does report position and battery.


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Cool!

I've seen castleOS before.. fairly impressive. Not as awesome as indigo though