I am using Zigbee.
I have the Z-Wave version, not really happy TBH… If others can give their input in regards to the behavior I’m seeing here I’d really appreaciate it! Smartwings Z-Wave roller blinds lag/erratic behaviors
Personally I had issues with the zigbee versions with ZHA, even with 5 hardwired repeaters less than 6ft from the blinds. Blinds kept becoming unresponsive. After contacting support, they agreed to let me pay the difference for zwave motors. Replacement was easy and they have been rock solid. Support had no idea why the zigbee kept dropping off. They were the only zigbee devices I had problems with so I’m pretty sure it isn’t my network. For what it is worth!
One more data point; using Zigbee/ZHA with an Smlight SLZB-06M - no connection issues. 7 blinds, combination of roller & cellular, 12v hardwire & battery. I did need to use the “invert” command (per @holydoc) for all of them.
Interesting. I was using a sonoff -p dongle.
I used the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus-E Gateway for my Zigbee connected Smartwings shades. So far mine have been working great.
Did you manage to get this working reliably?
it was a bad repeater? I have your exact same problem, but even with devices directly connected to the controller.
Just wanted to add another data point for some:
I have 22 smartwings blinds, 16 of them are OG homekit blinds, 6 are the new matter/thread blinds. All are connected to home assistant using the home assistant connect. Not only have the thread blinds been rock solid (unlike the homekit ones that drop out often) since commissioning, they also add “stop” functionality which the homekit blinds are missing. (They are also furthest from the dongle, so go figure.)
2 Likes
I had all kinds of drop off issues with my thread motors. Blinds would go offline and require a sleep/wakeup to make them come online. I recently upgraded firmware to 1.3 , and have not had any problems for the last week. so hope the firmware is the long term resolution here.
Any details on how you did the firmware update? I didn’t realize smartwings offered that.
Reach out to them, but they sent me a guide on how to do the firmware upgrade using mobile apps. It was a little complex since I didn’t have an iOS phone but they figured out a work around using android.
I’m hesitant to share the exact steps since I don’t want you to end up bricking your shades since different shades and manufacturing dates may have different steps.
Hi Br0nd,
Is this still true today? I emailed support and they said that in home assistant using zwave motor you are able to control both bars in the top down bottom up shades.
Doing research for my shades!
Anyone if these zwave smartwings shades are fully compatible with home assistant such as controlling all bars if there are more than 1, scene creation, etc. ?
Light & Dark cellular shades: Motorized Day/Night Cellular Shades Nowa - SmartWings
TDBU light filtering shades: Cellular Window Blinds Levitate Nowa - Light Filtering Shades - SmartWings
Doing research.
I would prefer motorized Bali TDBU shades because i’m pretty sure they’re cheaper but I have no idea if they’re fully compatible with Home Assistant… I cant find much info out there…
I see that they sell the levitate shades in standard, zwave and matter motor, so the zwave must not have that limitation anymore. .
Too bad that I ordered everything matter since zwave wasn’t supported back then
I’m sorry 
and also thank you for replying!
Just wanted to add to this thread that I have had great success with z-wave. My 15 blinds are going on 1.5 years now and I almost never have issues. One of my favorite features with these blinds is you can program a specific stop point like 82%. It even works with Google home surprisingly well. “OK Google set office blackout to 82%” I use a battery powered zooz 5x up/down paddle switch in my bedroom. I program the “Bedroom Blackout” so that the top paddle is 32" and bottom paddle is 23" from the bottom. That way during the summer I just hit that switch and the shades go to the exact put that is either at the top of my window fan or at the midpoint so my fan in different configurations can blow fresh air in while I get some light blockage. Also, even with daily use I can still go probably 4 months between having to recharge them. Home Assistant tells you the battery status which is really helpful. I created an entity card of every battery powered device so I can glance at it and know which batteries I need to change/charge now or in the near future.
1 Like
We are beginning to investigate some motorization options for roman shades.
We have a pretty solid zigbee network:
one aqara and one ikea door sensor become unresponsive occasionally and need to be reset but the other 50 odd devices are good.
and a good Z-wave network:
a single 500 series not plus fan switch in the shed drops off occasionally.
The mullions on the windows preclude the use of the solar panels to keep the shades charged.
I am looking for any experience about the relative battery life for the zigbee vs. z-wave motors
I have 3 Smartwings zigbee roller shades. I get about 3-4 months on a charge, and I am recharging around @ 30-40%. YMMV.
Thank you.