Bali Blinds appearing as both blind and garage door

Configuration Z-Wave
1

I have paired by Bali Blinds shade with HA using Z-Wave and it’s mostly working. The problem is that when paired, it appears to register two entities:

cover.graber_rsz1_roller_shade_level
cover.graber_rsz1_roller_shade_switch

Which in turn makes HA think that I have both a shade (I do!) and a garage door (I don’t!), both of which control the same thing. And HomeKit also sees two things.

So my question is: how can I fine tune how these entities are treated by HA (and ultimately HomeKit)? And since I really just need one of them (level seems to do the job), is there a way to just ignore the second entity?

2

Within the Z-Wave Node Management page, if you select your zwave shade, you should be able to exclude certain entities for that zwave node. This should remove them from Home Assistant as well as HomeKit.

1 Like
3

Perfect. I wasn’t aware of that, now I am. I also see this is where I can rename the associated entity. Thank you!

4

No problem! Glad I could help.

5

Even after excluding it from the Z-Wave page, it still shows up in the overview.
Is there something I need to do to get the exclusion to take effect?

Thanks!

6

Double check that in your main configuration.yml file you are actually linking to the zwave_device_config.yaml file. This burned me once: even though the UI lets you exclude things and it writes to zwave_device_config.yaml, it won’t actually be utilized until your configuration.yml file says something like this:

zwave:
  usb_path: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-xxx
  device_config: !include zwave_device_config.yaml

I hope that does it for you!

1 Like
7

I’m buying Bali blinds right now, how do you pair them to HA? Can’t find the oficial integration.

At Lowe’s right now, what should I get and what should I just avoid?

8

Its been nearly 4 years since I bought my Bali shades (not blinds), but mine are “Autoview” motorized shades which are ZWave+. No official “Bali” integration, just use your favorite ZWave integration. Once paired, it shows up as both an on-off switch as well as a dimmer with the latter used to control the position of the shades.

9

What about the battery life? Are you overall happy with your Bali? Do I need to get their $120 remote?

10

Batteries are good for about 12 months (every day usage is open, close halfway, close all the way). The shades come with a remote that is all you need (so no don’t need to spend $$ on another remote).

11

You don’t have to use their remote. In my case, I regret buying a remote. They are integrated in automation based on sun and manual “close/partial open” via Pico remote or Alexa routine. Good luck

12

@wmaker I recently installed the blinds about 3 weeks ago and I am not seeing the battery performance you are. I am using 8 AA in each shade, with normal usage of morning open/evening close per day. The batteries were brand new. Curious if settings are causing the issue?

Screen Shot 2020-12-02 at 4.30.10 AM
Screen Shot 2020-12-02 at 4.30.10 AM804×860 22.5 KB

13

As a reference, the batteries I used are Lithium. When new, ZWave reports them as 100% and mine stayed at 100% for almost a year, until a few weeks before they started to go bad, at which point it reports oh like 70-80%, then the motor starts struggling more and more and I go ahead and replace the batteries.

14

Gotcha. Thanks for the follow-up, appreciate it.

15

hey guys, got 15 bali blinds and the nortek HUSBZB-1.

I was able to install z-wave and access the configuration part, I pressed “Add Node” and held the blind pairing button for 7 seconds, but after that no blind shows up on HASS…

What am I doing wrong here?

16

I believe the “7 seconds” is a ZWave network reset (blinds jog). “3 seconds” should be the include/exclude operation (LED flashes green)

17

I’m officially returning the blackout shades bali sold me, they are awesome… however they don’t sell and won’t budge on side channels to block light gaps, i have ordered non-automated bali blackouts + side channels to replace the blinds…

Now i need to figure out how to get the same motors and automate the dumb blinds… any ideas?