Hello -
Looking to purchase some Smartwings roller shades (I think). They have several communications protocols to choose from and - at least by the ordering - it’s an either/or at the time of ordering. The list both their ZWave and Zigbee as HA compatible. They also support HomeKit so I was wondering first of all if anyone has tried these with HomeKit integration.
My real goal is to find the most reliable, most functional integration. I need to be able to set position, read position and monitor the battery. Seems like mostly stuff any good Cover integration should do.
I just bought a zigbee version and I’m super impressed. Fit perfectly to my dimensions, set up as simple, including pairing with zigbee2mqtt. They are pretty quiet. My disappointment was the discovery that the open/ closed status is reversed and does not appear to be any way to fix it in zigbee2mqtt or otherwise which means that for now, I have to program automation calling the opposite intent. Voice control would surely be inverted as well which stinks. There is a feature request in with zigbee2mqtt to program a fix. I know that may not be your zigbee mechanism though. I also have zwave so I may try one of those soon to see if that works better before buying them for the whole house.
Thanks - was hoping to go Zigbee so that does help. Weird that those are reversed. Sounds like that’s an issue with the Smartwings, not the Zigbee2Mqtt?
Smartwings is supposed to release their thread compatible shades this quarter. They have already shipped out the Indiegogo orders. I just bought and installed the Home Assistant SkyConnect which will have thread/matter support as well as zigbee support. My hope is that I can get this to work with Home Assistant. My only concern is that I don’t have any Apple or Homekit devices in my home. The indiegogo campaign states that thread is the wireless protocol supported and that you scan the homekit setup code. I’m not sure if this will work for me. At least it also has bluetooth support. I have bluetooth enabled and working on HA Docker install such that I get temp updates from a bluetooth Govee thermometer. Hopefully as a backup I could get the bluetooth working.
Does anyone know if you need a Homekit router to use the newer Smartwings shade or will the SkyConnect adapter be good enough?
I noticed that. However they want $100 for the thread support vs $30 for zigbee. I am not sure what to do. I have the skyconnect so I should be able to connect to either the zigbee or thread version. I am not 100% sure though.
All of a sudden my 35+ Hue bulbs keep losing connection and coming back to my hub. I changed channels and the problem persists. Now seems like the perfect time to try to get some Hue bulbs on Skyconnect so the Smartwings rollers can be on a more robust zigbee network. Managing two networks seems like a potentially bad idea.
Out of curiosity are you using ZHA for your zigbee network? The ZHA is more standards based, seems easier to manage, but I have no idea if Smartwings works with that.
I have 40 devices on my zigbee2mqtt. After I moved the wifi off channel 11, the zigbee stuff worked a lot better. I have the hue devices connected to the hue hub, on their own network. Yep, two zigbee networks, but it’s fine.
I’ve decided to order the z-wave smartwings rollers. The z-wave takes a bit longer to setup, but seems like it always works and doesn’t ever flake out.
My z-wave network has been the most stable in my home. The z-wave version is tempting and probably the most future proof other than thread. I suspect zigbee will fade away and be replaced with thread but that z-wave will be its own thing for awhile. I just don’t know anyone who has actually used z-wave with homeassistant with Smartwings.
I wanted to chime back in and say the z-wave version has been working perfectly so far. It seems to respond to commands as fast as the hand held remote. In other threads especially with homekit there were lots of complaints of it taking 10s and longer to respond. I was pleasantly surprised that it just worked through Google Nest Hub once I exposed my two new covers to it in my configuration.yaml Commands like “Ok Google Open Blackout” just work. Using Home Assistant I was able to create a new group helper with cover.blinds and cover.blackout now part of cover.bedroom_shades. I can say “OK google close bedroom shades” and both get closed. The dual roller, although expensive, is really awesome. The only issue I have is I need a good way to block the light from seeping through the top of the roller. In the evening when the sun beams into my room looking at my blackout shade is like looking at a total solar eclipse. Light glows around the edges. If anyone has any ideas let me know.
I don’t know if the zigbee or thread version exposes this but I have a sensor.blackout_battery_level which makes it handy to monitor the battery levels of these to know when to recharge. It also shows me the firmware version. Really nice.
I got two double rollers, z-Wave, which I’ve installed and hard wired. They work well, are fast and mostly quiet. The double roller doesn’t have an option for a valence but I suppose I could build one.
I have a Zooz paddle I’m planning to use for control from the wall. There is a noticeable 1 second delay when using the paddle or app. The SmartWings remote works without delay.
The app shows the position of the cover and it will slide to whatever position. However, I can’t find the open percentile in the state attributes. Also, the state shows open or closed but doesn’t show opening or closing. I think some people have created templates for the other states.
I have my paddle working for basic up / down, but when it’s moving I want another press to be the stop action.
They stick the z-wave QR code on the front of the blind bar, which is annoying, and I’m afraid if I try to remove it, it’ll tear and become unusable.
I have it wired to the mains, but the mains sensor shows unavailable.
The QR Code simply encodes a string. Take a picture of it, keep it as a backup and you will be fine. I actually just pasted the string of some of my Smart Start QR Codes into my label printer and they came out working exactly as the original from the manufacturer.
I should probably do that. I want to keep the labels intact in case the next owner of my house wants to make use of them. When I moved from ST to HA, I had to pull my Levitron outlets out of the wall to scan them, which was not convenient at all!
That’s very kind of you. I had nothing like that when I bought my house.
I keep everything related to things around the house in a (virtual) binder that I intend to pass along to the new owners when I sell the house. even down to the stain I put on the deck so they don’t have to strip it off as it can be easily reapplied using the same product
When you added them to your zwave network did they show up as covers? I just got three new shades and got them added. The entities are showing up as lights.
I had a light and two covers added for each roller. The covers were named something weird like “outbound right” I believe the outbound left one was what I renamed.
Just an update - I have two dual shades installed, so four z-wave motors. They are hardwired to 12V through the wall and into the attic. The shades come with a foot long 12v wire. They do NOT function as repeaters. The report a battery level of 90%+ (but don’t have a battery), and the mains status is “unknown”. It seems like they are really designed for battery, and can’t tell that they are mains powered. Not a big deal. They import to zwave JS/hass fine. Whenever I add z-wave devices, I have to disconnect my phone’s wifi, on order to use https, which is a minor annoyance.
What I noticed today is the device class in hass is “window”, instead of “shade”. I was able to customize the entities in the hass gui, but it seems hass should be able to figure this out. I don’t know if this logic is in hass or zjwave js, but the in zwave GUI, it’s clear that it’s a window covering and not a motorized window. I didn’t notice the device class until I viewed it in homekit, and homekit wants to alert me that windows are open.
A few updates on my SmartWings shades. Mine are z-wave and have hard wired power. There is always a lag from sending the command to the shades taking action. It varies between 5-10 seconds. This doesn’t happen with the RF remote. The only thing I can think is that the z-wave radio is designed for battery and isn’t listening all of the time. Note, the devices also are not routers.
Two weeks ago I updated z-wave JS. This caused quite a headache, because it lost track of my previous covers, and added two covers for each motor, one named “Outbound Right” and the other “Outbound Lower”. I hid the “Outbound Right” and renamed the “Outbound Lower” to that of my original shade. It also added a ‘light’ device to each shade, which again showed and controlled the state. I hid the light entity as well. The z-wave JS developer, raman325, said this is due to a change it how the shades are discovered and possibly the shades are wrong. After all the hiding / renaming, they are working fine again. It’s unfortunate, as previously the blinds integrated well with HomeAssistant, but now they require a lot of manual changes, per blind.
Update on the Smartwings Thread radio side of things:
Pairing sucks. It takes multiple attempts and HA will often state that pairing failed even when it did not. I’m not sure exactly where the failure is (Smartwings documentation, OTBR, or HA).
They are still Homekit over thread. I have yet to see a migration path over to Matter although it was promised in the Indiegogo campaign. So far it sounds like Matter over Thread is still in beta for shades.
One they’re paired they work… okay. From a device in HA integration standpoint it sounds much simpler than the other radios. All shades are detected properly. Up is up, down is down. Battery status updates at least after each use. Shows a little lightning bolt if charging. Identify button flashes the led. No extra entities to disable. Shades will often respond in under a second, but may take up to 5 seconds (max). Shade position updates once movement has stopped. The only thing missing is a cover stop service to make it easier to control how I want to.
Unfortunately the connection to HA has been less than reliable. Most blinds work fine, but I have a somewhat random 2 (out of the 15) that will drop out–sometime for days at a time. Sometimes rebooting HA helps, sometimes it makes matters worse.
My Skyconnect is in the basement so not an ideal setup. I added a WeMo WSP100 plug to act as a mesh repeater and at least that has been connected solid. Hard to say where exactly the problem is. Not sure if this is Smartwings radio, Skyconnect, OTBR, or Home Assistant issue. The OTBR web interface leaves a lot to be desired. I can see that half of the shades are going through the WeMo, but I couldn’t tell you which from the information provided.
