I have installed a bunch of Rollease Acmeda window covering devices in the last few months and I have had nothing but issues with the connectivity of the product itself. I have no doubt that this is NOT HA related but I’m getting very little help from the manufacturer. I am using the Automate Pulse 2 integration (https://github.com/sillyfrog/Automate-Pulse-v2) which seems to be doing what it is supposed to do but my biggest problem is that the hub itself seems to “reset” overnight and thinks that all of the covers are opened when they may or may not be.
For example, I have 4 covers that close at sunset every evening and are supposed to open at sunrise every morning. At some point every night the integration reports the cover devices as “unavailable” and then a few seconds later they come back online and all show as “opened”. This happens at the same time every night (2am central time, for what it’s worth) as verified by logs.
Add on to this issue, I am now dealing with the Hub itself loosing connection to all the covers at some point every night and the native app for the hub errors out when trying to connect to the cover devices. A power cycle clears up this problem but it’s not an elegant fix for the problem by any means.
I have spent more time on the phone with their support techs and exchanging emails than I want to admit. Each time I’m confronted with nothing but run around and “buzz words” blaming the problem on anything but their product. I am a video engineer by trade and former IT engineer so I recognize what they are doing as trying to clear out their trouble tickets and blame the issues on “unstable wifi” (my hub is connected via ethernet, or “(my) ISP dropping packets late at night”.
I’m reaching out here hoping that some others who have this product as well may have been through what I’ve been and might have figured out how to fix it without the help of the manufacturer.
I am having similar issues. I have a Pulse 2 hub and 4 shades in my living room and one in an adjacent bed room. The hub is sitting in the open living area and the distance from hub to shades is from 2-6m (clear line of sight).
The shades continually drop offline, and the only way to get back is to power cycle the hub, occasionally jogging the shade with the remote brings back connectivity. Two of the 4 shades won’t pair with the hub at all. I will be contacting tech support during the week to see what they suggest. I can only think it can be hardware related.
similar problems here - can’t figure out how they actually connect - doesn’t seem to be on the local wifi network, but directly between the blinds and the hub, which has a pathetically short range. I’m trying to find information on the pairing protocol, but haven’t had any luck. Starting to suspect a deliberate strategy to sell multiple over- priced hubs
Thank you all for your feedback. I was considering buying this hub but given the reported issues I will buy an alternative product. Hopefully the manufacturer/distributor reads this and realize they need to give better support or improve their products, otherwise people will not buy it.
Good decision
I regret my purchase, it has driven me nuts for over a year. If I hadn’t spent so much money I would replace them all.
Other than the remote all other controls are tentative at best.
FYI I work in RF product testing.
My Rollease Acmeda Pulse 2 hub was also unreliable. I called support and it turns out I had RF version B10 on the hub. Support updated the RF firmware to version B17 and now the hub operates 100% reliably!
Now if HA would make the new Pulse 2 integration available everything would be perfect!
How are people going with their Pulse 2 hub now? Has the B17 firmware fixed issues and is the HA integration still working well? This brand is at the top of my list for a new blind purchase but lack of automation would be a deal breaker.
Thanks for the feedback. So it’s not just a normal firmware upgrade, that unusual. Apparently Bond Bridge also supports Rollease Acmeda motors now too so that might be a more general solution, although it doesn’t have two way communication apparently.
I received the same e-mail. I’d like to know how they expect us to control our blinds without a HUB while it’s sent off for repair. I suppose the remote still works, but I have 10 blinds which would be a beating with a remote. Fortunately, I have two hubs (am currently only using one) and will send one back first to and keep the second one online.
I’m not sure what the issue really is that there’s not an at-home solution to fixing it. Something about running out of memory. They should have just sent us new hubs free of charge if we return the old ones. The motors have been sporadic at best. Never quite in sync. I’ve already had to replace one in under two years use.
How did you get them to do that? They sent me an e-mail whereby I had to fill in my address and information for UPS to mail my HUB to them and for them to mail me one back. Are you in the United States?
I ended up going the Bond Bridge route and I’m impressed with it so far. Very easy to setup, paired with the blind without issue and configured itself in Home Assistant. I expected it to replicate the remote (up, down and stop), but you can tell it percentages to go to as well. Working through HomeKit and Google for voice control.
I added a Bond bridge and use it to control 12 ACMEDA blinds. It covers all of my medium size house and allows me to position blinds to a % open. I tried two Pulse v2 units along with an extender and could never get them to work reliably. Here in Australia the Bond bridge was A$180 and the Pulse ‘solution’ A$600.
100% the Bond Bridge here. I had tried 3 hubs and 2 repeaters and the stupid motors wouldn’t work even if they were within LoS less than 20 ft away. Now a single Bond covers almost all of my shades (going to try the Pro shortly).
Only issue I see is I’m not sure the Bond gets an “update” if the remote is used, as it doesn’t technically know the position of the shade. It could be my setup, but in case anyone has a solution to that, let me know!
@AlanW2 & @isentropik … how is it going with the bond bridge?
I am going to buy some Rollease blinds, and the supplier is not very automation aware Do I need a hub from them? i.e. does the IR remotes connect directly to each blind or the remote communicates with the blinds through an IR hub?
Do I need a hub from them? i.e. does the IR remotes connect directly to each blind or the remote communicates with the blinds through an IR hub?