How to control io-homecontrol / Velux devices/blinds / Somfy?

Hardware
1

Hi all,
I’m stuck with Velux windows; 9 of them, each with a full blind and a sun screen, which each has a separate remote. Ultimately, I’d love to be able to control (up, down, stop) all 18 distinct devices individually.

Now, the KLF200 only allows 5 distinct devices (unless I start grouping them). So I’d need four of these. Besides being rather expensive, that seems just brain dead. Also, Velux themselves aren’t currently selling the KLF200, which is probably not a good sign? (I could get it from the free market, but …)

Does anyone have a better suggestion?

The Somfy hubs seem to require a cloud setup, which I definitely do not want; this needs to work even when the internet is down and also shouldn’t be that easy to hack.

I could, if I put my mind to it, probably salvage the remotes I have and solder them to an arduino, but that lacks a certain elegance and would be quite a mess :wink:

Thanks for any suggestions that aren’t “dude, why did you buy Velux” :wink:

1 Like
2

Hi

I own the KLF200 - and I am not sure what you mean about it being able to only control 5 devices? Perhaps, if you use the physical ports to electrically control them, but the KLF200 can “talk” to your windows wirelessly.

We have 7 windows with blinds, all controlled through HA.

3

Hi,

I’m in the same boat. Did you ever find any way to do this bar buying the klf 200?

4

I ended up buying the KLF 200. It works fine - and the documentation about it supporting only 5 devices is truly misleading, it drives all of them ok.

Every few weeks it loses the connection to HA, but I put it on a switchable plug and then just trigger a power-cycle and then restart HA to make it reconnect. And you will want to only send it so many commands per second or it gets overwhelmed, so delay is your friend (I really should fix that).

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5

Thanks. I’ll track one down.

6

Hello,

In a lot of the Velux forums I read about the KLF200 but not the KUX110… as I understand the documentation of Velux you need a KUX and if you want to use other platforms (example HA) you need to buy KLF200.

So my question now is, do you guys only have a KLF200 or do you have both? A KLF200 and a Kux110?

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This question is interesting. I’m going to buy 3 VELUX and I decided to go with the KLF200.

hope someone can tell us if we need to buy the KUX 110 too.

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No, you don’t need the KUX.

I have 18 Velux products - blinds and shades - behind a single KLF200. It works mostly fine.

What’s a bit annoying is that occasionally, the KLF200 and HA lose their connection and I’ve got to power-cycle the KLF200 and also trigger a restart of HA afterwards (because the integration doesn’t reconnect automatically). On the plus side, that can be scripted in Home Assistant itself … and maybe one day I’ll get around to fixing the integration :wink:

3 Likes
9

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, I saw other users having your same issue. No prob, I will reboot the KLA on every Home Assistant boot in order to avoid issues.

1 Like
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Hi @lmb ,

If you don’t use the KUX, how do you get the 24V? Any type of transformer is possible? Do you have an example to share?

Thanks for the help.
LM

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The KLF200 acts as an additional remote for the devices (and has a standard Micro USB supply itself). There’s no electric power connection to them.
How you wire them up for operations, either via 24V or with the solar models, is up to you.

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Thanks for the reply. Sorry, I did lock of accuracy with my message.

I understood that the KLF200 is powered with the plug supplied in the box.

My question was rather related to roller shutter I installed. Electricians told me that I have to install the KUX110 → 24v transformer. What other type of transformer would you use instead?

Regarding to your previous posts
“I have 18 Velux products - blinds and shades - behind a single KLF200. It works mostly fine.”
I’m wondering how it works. Did you group velux products together to manage it?

"What’s a bit annoying is that occasionally, the KLF200 and HA lose their connection and I’ve got to power-cycle the KLF200 and also trigger a restart of HA afterwards (because the integration doesn’t reconnect automatically). On the plus side, that can be scripted in Home Assistant itself … and maybe one day I’ll get around to fixing the integration :wink: "
Did you finally manage to fix the integration? [Question from a newbie in HA]

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I don’t know about transformers - all my Velux devices are solar-powered and self-contained (blinds/covers) with just a remote.

I’m not grouping the devices, the KLF200 exposes all devices individually to Home Assistant and they can be controlled independently.

I’ve not managed to fix the “sometimes it hangs” bug; I just reset the KLF200 every once in a while when I restart HA anyway. That’s not very elegant and I really should get to it at some point, but since the “hang” persists even over a HA restart, I’m concluding that the actual hangup is on the KLF200 side and thus would be very tricky to fix without a new firmware …

1 Like