I have plus remotes, no premium remotes; I never use the home button - basic would have been fine. I have the Decora mount for the remotes, and keep the remote on the wall next to the room’s light switch.
Some people automate their blinds to open / close based on sun position / solar energy for heating / cooling. I only automate the blinds in the kids room to close automatically at bedtime - blackouts, it’s difficult to convince them to go to sleep when still bright outside.
I have a blueprint for mine to prevent the blinds from being closed over an open window. If the down remote button is pressed, or the blind notifies it’s in a down position, HA checks if the window sensor is closed, and opens the blind if the window is open.
I had no issues adding the blinds to HA when far away from the controller, but I did have issues with the remotes; I just carried the remotes within a few feet of the controller and added there.
The main issue I had with the blinds was random z-wave freezing requiring power cycle; this issue was fixed by updating the blind firmware using the Bali app (only works for the newer Bluetooth enabled blinds).
This was actually easier than I thought it would be, thanks to everyone’s help/confidence. The new ZWA-2 worked great, identified all 8 of my blinds in different rooms and whether far or near the response time on programming was almost immediate. I took barely 30 minutes to get them all ID’d by HA and logged. Also got the remotes reprogrammed, again all went well.
Toiok almost 90 minutes to get groups, helpers, and automations built. The longest most difficult part was Alexa integration. Have integration with Nabu Casa but with 2 groups of shades, and routines needed for open/close/stop it just took time (with Copilot’s help setting up triggers). Am spoiled being able to voice commands to open/close/stop each group ad lib. Not ready for HA’s voice assistant yet. Also setup a close at sunset automation as well. Installed a battery monitor into HA for good measure.
Overall, not nearly as difficult as I predicted beforehand. Thanks greatly to you two as well.
First of all, thanks for providing such detailed instructions and contributions to the code base. I’m a newbie HA enthusiast who is just discovering the potential to add Bali blinds to it. Questions for you:
My setup: Bali plus remote, tied to Bali gateway, which controls 3 double cellular (top-bottom) motorized AC-based blinds. I bought the gateway before I learned about HA.
Since then I have started with HA Green with ZWA-2 antenna. Is this the ZWA-2 radio you mention?
Is your Bali Plus remote part of your z-wave network? If so, does it have to connect to the z wave network or can it still control directly the blinds using bluetooth? I fear having a lag in up/down commands through HA.
My Plus remote is currently paired with the Bali Gateway (at least I think it is since it made me do similar routine to what you describe above). Is there a way to add the Bali gateway to HA? I feel less buyer’s remorse re-using it…
I have currently the app automation of opening the shades using the sunrise/sunset. Does the app still work after adding blinds to the HA z-wave network?
It was painful to set the shades with Alexa. @generik do you’ve steps to re-add it with HA + ZWA-2?
caerus, I am far from a HA expert but will try to answer your questions:
Speaking for myself there were two things I feared/realized through this process. First, the setup into HA was really pretty effortless as I remembered the original Bali setup and how much work it seemed to be to get right. Second, the HA controls and response time are better than the original Bali system. Just as GrizzlyAK and dlodge so expertly explain above, the installation routine is the same as you used for the Bali installation. I REALLY didn’t want to reset all of the devices and start over but it truly went cleanly into HA.
Yes, the ZWA-2 is the antenna and works perfectly in my home with excellent coverage.
The Plus remote, after being reset and then paired into the HA instance, becomes a device and will locally control any shades you pair with it.
The gateway turns into an unnecessary device after HA integration and is now sitting in a drawer. It never worked for me nearly as well as the ZWA-2.
You no longer need to Bali app after HA integration. The “automations” in HA are so rich that you won’t want to use the app. And, as stated, the responsiveness of the shades in HA is amazing.
Alexa – make sure you have the Home Assistant skill installed in your Alexa and when you add a shade or controller, it will instantly recognize the device and add it to the Alexa world as well. It is then pretty simple to build/add any routines into Alexa you might need. As a matter of fact, the HA/Alexa integration is MUCH better than the Spring Windows skill in Alexa and has worked without fail.
Take the Bali gateway and put it into a drawer/box. Reset all of you Bali shade devices. Get the ZWA-2 setup in HA. Make sure to setup the HA skill into Alexa. Start with the shades and integrate them individually into HA. Then add your controllers into HA and set them up as Bali instructs for local control. Setup any Alexa routines you want and you’re done!
Great response, along with some excellent advice. I don’t use Alexa nor did I get the Bali Controller (as I anticipated using HA from the outset), so this is an extremely valuable contribution to the knowledge base on integrating Bali shades with HA. Thanks @generik.
I, too, use the ZWA-2 controller, and after some initial pains (fixed by forcing ZW to recreates routes manually one at a time, nearest to far, as was recommended), my network seems to be very robust now. Many fewer 2- and 3-hops connections (mostly only one), and speeds are generally faster between those nodes and the controller now.
Even with that, when I use HA to control the shades, the delay with which they respond can vary from immediately to 10-15 seconds, depending on what else is going on. Mostly, they start moving immediately. But note that I typically control 3 or 4 shades at a time with one button using a Group, so that’s a LOT of commands being sent to different devices all at once by HA. Understanding that, I feel that response times are very good. Also note that if I use my premium remote, which I programmed to control the same groups, all the shades move instantaneously at the same time. So it is definitely faster in the respect, but they are directly connected to each other, so… I reserve that to impress our neighbors with synchronized movement.
I find I rarely use the Bali remote anymore tho. HA is just so much more convenient, and you can do so much more with your automations and grouping.
Thank you @generik and @GrizzlyAK for the encouragement and the valuable info! I plan to implement the advice this weekend and report back.
I’m very impressed by HA but more than that, the community. Looking forward to contributing to it as well.
Thank you all, reporting that my migration is complete and successful. No lag, no issues with automations, and physical remote device works perfectly fine. My Bali Gateway is tucked away in a drawer…wondering if there’s a way to repurpose that hardware cause I hate to see the $$ lost.
While I made mistakes along the way, the shades themselves were the easy part. The hardest part was dealing with the move to Z-wave JS UI, where my mistakes had consequences beyond the shades. Below is a compilation of the mistakes:
1. Running Duplicate Z-Wave Add-ons
The most significant initial mistake was leaving the basic “Z-Wave JS” add-on running while trying to start “Z-Wave JS UI”. Because both programs were fighting to control the same physical USB stick, I encountered the “Cannot lock port” error. Additionally, failing to disable “Start on boot” for the old add-on meant it would have continued to crash the system upon every restart. A simple physical disconnect/reconnect of the antenna helped.
2. Attempting Inclusion Before Exclusion
When pairing the Bali shades, the first inclusion attempt timed out because the shade was still “married” to its factory test network or old Bali Gateway. Z-Wave devices are “monogamous” and will ignore new hubs unless they are formally “divorced” through an Exclusion (factory reset) process first.
3. Neglecting Security Key Migration
When moving from the basic Z-Wave JS add-on to the UI version, the S0 and S2 security keys were not transferred. Consequently, my thermostats appeared as “Unknown” devices because the new “brain” (Z-Wave JS UI) did not have the encryption passwords required to read their messages.
4. Manual PIN Entry for Thermostat Secure Devices
I struggled a lot with an “incorrect PIN” loop and “endless spins” when trying to manually re-pair the Honeywell T6 Pro thermostats. These secure S2 devices are notoriously difficult to pair manually; the better approach was using SmartStart (QR code scanning), which pre-loads the security keys into the hub before the device even tries to connect and then do multiple exclude-include cycles.
Glad everything worked out! I noticed a dramatic improvement in network stability with the ZWA-2, and another increase in reliability when I switched to PoE in a more central location in my house.
The Bali app is needed to update the firmware on the blinds - they don’t release the firmware OTA.
I currently have 25 blinds installed; 20 CRZB and 5 RSZ1. The CRZB had a bug where the blinds would go dead - unresponsive even to pressing the physical button. I started with resetting the power to the blinds (all hardwired) every night, but a firmware update (and possibly the new ZWA-2) solved the problem.
If for some reason a blind is disconnected, it will take a while for other blinds in the room (programmed to the same remote) to respond to button presses; the remotes seem to be waiting for a response from the dead blind.
I have all my blinds in a group, and upon switching the “All Blinds” group, it takes about a minute to close all the blinds. My group contains other groups (individual rooms); they close each group sequentially rather than simultaneously.
Hey everyone who is monitoring this thread who have Bali shades. I’m having issues adding my Premium Remote back to my ZWave network after removing it (to add another shade, since it has to have the highest node number). I had added it before with no issues and it worked fine. Adding the new shade worked as expected, it is just the remote that is failing to include. I have a post about the issue here.
The ONLY thing I’ve changed in my network between the first time I included the remote successfully and now is that I have upgraded my controller from the Aeotec ZStick 5+ to the ZWA-2 and have installed the multiple ZWave updates that have occurred during the interim.
In summary, I included 9 shades, one remote with the ZStick 5+ and everything worked fine. I upgraded to the ZWA-2, and everything still worked fine. I excluded the remote, added the new shade, and have not been able to re-include the remote since then. Today I received a NEW remote from Bali to try (their support is OUTSTANDING), but I’m getting the exact same behavior (which you can read about on the linked post).
If anyone has experienced this issue, please let me know. if this is related to the ZWA-2 or any updates to ZWave-JS, we can hopefully get it resolved before anyone else suffers the same fate.
I stumbled upon this post when trying to add the Graber Premium 12 channel remote to my HA instance.
After pairing the remote to HA, I couldn't find a blueprint to easily assign the buttons to different actions, so I created this blueprint.
As for your pairing issue @GrizzlyAK : I'm using a Zooz ZWave stick, and I was able to pair it after a few tries. The trick seemed to be clicking the "resend" button on the remote while it was in "Learning" mode (aka pairing mode; the remote calls it Learning mode). Good luck!
Thanks Scott, for the info. Unfortunately, I tried using the resend option repeatedly to try to keep the remote awake long enough to pair. But what seemed to happen in those cases, is that I suddenly had multiple devices appear in my ZWUI control panel all stuck on ProtrocolInfo.
I suspect there is probably some remnant in the system somewhere from an early failed attempt that may be preventing me from a successful inclusion again, but until I get some help from someone on the ZW team who can tell me where to look, I'm at a loss. I keep trying periodically, paring right up next to the controller antennae, or further away, pressing resend, or just any other key to keep it awake, but nothing has worked. Glad you got it to work.
The only other thing it could be is the ZWA-2, since that is the only thing that has changed HW wise. Cheers.
I finally got this remote to rejoin. I did nothing different than I already had tried, but did use the “resend” button method on the remote while paring. Maybe the timing was just right.
I am getting ready to dive into this with Bali/Costco shades and this thread is amazing, thanks to all. I run HA on an old mac mini with a Zooz Z-Wave Long Range 800 usb stick. It has worked well for me with Honeywell Thermostat and a multitude of sensors and motion detectors. Is ZWA-2 really required for the Bali shades?
Absolutely NOT. I initially ran mine with the Aeotec ZStick 5+ 500 series controller, and they worked fine. I upgraded to the ZWA-2 afterward, and really saw no improvement that I could point to regarding the shades. Mine are at the extent of my range on the other side of the house two floors down. I had a lot of trouble with the ZWA-2 after upgrading. I had to manually rebuild routes to every device, which his a pain if you have a bunch of battery devices like I do (you have to wake them up multiple times). I ultimately seem to have more direct (one-hop) routes with the ZWA-2, which is what you would expect with more power. You should be fine with the Zooz Stick without an upgrade to the ZWA-2, unless you just want to. If I had it to go over again, I’d probably still be using the ZStick 5+. I, personally, haven’t seen the value in the ZWA-2 in my setup. I have nearly 90 devices. I’m still loving my Bali Shades.
Thanks so much for the feedback. I do have a lot of battery powered devices. In particular the firmware on the zooz water sensors is troublesome to upgrade. I’m not sure what I can do other than keep trying, eventually, I will get them all updated…
No but I recently switched from Hubitat to HA. Previously with Hubitat some of my Zooz devices including my roller shades wouldn’t run at their scheduled time but would run on the next run.
When I switched to HA I went with the ZWA-2 (as recommended) and so far none of my devices have missed a schedule to run. I like to think the ZWA-2 antenna is more powerful than the integrated antenna in the Hubitat.
