My CONTROLLER is not LR compatible, the actual controller/coordinator that is connected directly to Home Assistant…not the blinds.
Ah… that’s interesting. But are the modules in the shades labeled with “LR”? (It willl also be on the bottom label).
I’m curious if we have the same physical modules in the shades.
I tried adding mine on a dual controller as standard z-wave protocol, not long-range, and they failed. I did not try hard, but I actually got a failure message in the logs of unsupported. So I did not keep trying. It’s interesting if you have the same firmware and modules but it works with your non-long-range protocol controller. Is it a 700 series or something older?
I just checked, and yes the label on the blinds says Plus LR. My controller is an Aeotec Z-Stick Gen 5, so yes an older 500 series controller. I picked it for stability reasons when I installed it about 2 years ago. I haven’t run into a compelling reason to upgrade yet.
That’s interesting. Someone suggested I try a 500 series but I didn’t see any available now. Though if SW did this right, their LR module should actually work better with the 800 series, no relays, faster links. But reality does not always live up to marketing promise.
My replacement shade and new modules have shipped, maybe arrive this coming week. More then.
Good luck.
OK, I have a progress report.
SmartWings sent me a replacement shade for the one I could not get to work at all. It worked out of the box, included without issue, and functions. I think the motor in that shade had failed in some fashion; I suspect from the double-reset they had me do, but could just be a loose wire.
They also sent me replacement z-wave modules. I replaced one that was an older firmware, it worked fine (well, almost, more on that) and I left the other unchanged as it was already working.
In doing this I found one aspect that I think contributes to their issues. I believe they are using a feature of the LR protocol that dynamically lowers transmit power to save battery. Or they rolled their own. Below are the two shades that stayed connected the longest. Notice the significant falloff over time; it is dropping to the same range or slightly above the noise levels reported by my stick (which vary from about -96 to -101 depending on some televisions on in the are). I think they are two aggressive at whatever they are doing. I should also note this does NOT reset on power cycle, so if one falls too low to communicate, it appears to require a exclude/include cycle.
I did not try including these as standard z-wave vs long range (I tried earlier and failed but there have been a lot of firmware versions sent me so not sure which failed). This may prevent the power drop off and if I start having trouble will try again.
The other issue I am now convinced about is that their z-wave module physical case is poorly designed. The PCB inside has an RJ11 socket that is not well centered (in the image the black RJ11 is too far to the left). The actual connection pins are then difficult to reach without pushing in hard and in this image angled to the left. I had several times I tried and it would not work without pushing and shaking (the clip engages easily but is inadequate to pull it into the right spot).
So if you have these and they stop working for z-wave at all, pry them up from the double side take (a thin knife will do it but it takes work), get where you can hold it in your hand, and push hard and shake a bit.
At this point I am hopeful. I also think they did a nice job hanging in there with me through this process, though they have not been very forthcoming what they think caused the issues. The long shipping delays from china were a nuisance; they answered email the next day consistently.
Hopefully this is the last you hear of my issues. Hope this helps others. Would I buy them again? Well, maybe. I love the shades, if I get the idea they learned from this and improve these issues, yes. They certainly are a LOT cheaper than others, like Lutron or even Bali.
Linwood
I’m glad you got at least SOME resolution. Wow, what an ordeal.
Sorry for responding to such an old message but yes, not sure what the “switch” is for.
My matter shades were great when they worked, but probably once a week, one or more would drop offline. and I had to make the motor sleep and then wake up to bring it back online.
I have done two things (1) I purchased a few esp-h32 modules, flashed them to support them thread and added them to my network to have a few more repeaters (2) Smartwings helped me firmware upgrade my shades to Matter 1.3
I am not sure how much (1) the thread repeaters helped… but (2) upgrading the firmware to 1.3 seems to be rock solid. Its only been a week but so far have not had any shade go offline since the firmware update - fingers crossed that the issue has been resolved.
It definitely felt like a firmware/sleep bug vs a repeater issue… since it was a repeater issue, not sure why making the shade sleep and wakeup would fix it being offline.
Thanks!
Yes, Matter firmware v1.3 is ROCK solid for me. Prior versions had shades randomly dropping offline. Since 1.3 (early 2025) not a single shade has had a problem.
Yes mine are rock solid BUT if I ever reboot home assistant, my matter devices seem to slowly sporadically come back online… some are online right away, some may take a few hours.
I’m guessing that’s more of how matter/thread works or it’s a HA quirk
But fyi… my zwave will be fully back online within minutes, but matter takes a few hours for everything to come back online
The beta Matter.js Matter server is VASTLY faster to bring devices online after a restart. My 72 devices come online in about 5 minutes.
Was it slow for devices to come back online before you updated to the beta server?
About 45 minutes for everything to come online with the legacy Matter server.
Wow! I did not realize that Matter devices had such a long delay coming up after a system reboot. All my other protocols come up immediately. Why the delay with Matter?
Thanks, I’ve switched to the beta matter server too, let’s see how it goes
I’m guessing since it’s still not mature, but the fact that it’s faster in the beta, tells us it’s possible may just take a little work to figure out
Thank you (and sorry for likewise replying to a very old message). I never did get my Thread network to a stable situation (my shades were more off than on), and have just been using the included remote, but this gave me hope to give it another try.
I reached out to SmartWings and they gave me directions to upgrade the firmware to version “1.0.0+6” using the DUCTech phone app, which I was able to do, but didn’t immediately fix things. I think I’m going to try a complete reinstall of OTBR and Matter (these are the only Matter devices I have working, although I tried to pick up a cheap smart outlet to use as a repeater which I never got paired to the network) and factory reset of the shades (tedious to reset limits but I did one by accident in the firmware update and it’s not too awful) and see if it behaves better.
I just wanted to ask if 1.3 is the actual firmware version number you received and if you think I should ask them if there’s another update, or if you think I’m on the right version now? Thanks.