In the process of selecting automated HA-controlled roller shades for my home. The reviews seem mixed for everything I have looked at, and I was hoping I could get some feedback and input from the community.
My home:
I am using a mix of Home Assistant and Samsung SmartThings to control everything. Basically, I am slowly moving automation off of SmartThings to HA, with SmartThings interfacing with HA to send commands to all the devices.
RollerShades details:
The first window I will be covering is 119 inches wide by 57 inches high.
Manufactures, Motors, and Interfaces:
Graber with Somfy Tahoma RTS Zigbee
Hunter Douglas with Powerview
Rollezse with Pulse 2
Any details will be helpful - operations, issues, connectivity, integration with HA and SmartThings, expansion, and warranty are all touchpoints I am interested in learning about.
I didnt do RTS because I have a rather extensive ZWave mesh and I didn’t want another hub. I had some issues early on that were resolved with firmware.
My only suggestion stems from that - where you buy them from. Window covering is expensive enough before you automate these so the cheapest ones start at well over $150USD per window. Because of that you don’t want to be stuck with devices you can’t get support for - which will be the case if you buy from a big box such as Lowes, Home Depot, Menards, etc.
Whatever you buy make ABSOLUTELY sure that you have an avenue to get support and firmware. If your retailer doesn’t offer support you could find yourself with a device that doesn’t work in your chosen ecosystem because of firmware issues and you can’t do anything about it because the place you bought it from doesn’t offer support.
If you use ZWave - no bridge. Somfy makes the motors - they come in two variants. RTS and Zwave. The Zwave ones do not need an RTS bridge - they need a Zwave coordinator.
Smartthings can control these natively as can HA. (Here’s where I add, my personal soapbox, I STRONGLY suggest you get away from using ST as your ZWave / Zigbee coordinator if you want any performance at all. It’s good for kicking the tires but if you want to go HA long term - dump the ST hub and get a set of ZWave / Zigbee dongles and move the devices) I had them on my ST hub for many years before moving everything last year to HA using ZwaveJS2MQTT.
Somfy sells their motors to manufacturers - most notably Springs Window Fashions, which then in turn sells them under multiple brand names, including Bali, Graber and Springs Window Fashions.
Bali is the brand they sell to big box stores - you WILL NOT get support for these. I avoid them like the plague. Graber is the brand they sell through retailers like Zebrablinds. (Zebra is where I buy all of mine and they are great with support) Springs, I believe is the brand they sell to designers -and you’ll have to discuss support with them directly.
If You want zigbee, you’ll have to look at others such as Ikea - but the Ikea ones don’t have as much customization as something like a full custom Graber blind.