Hi,
I recently installed a bunch of Soma shades at my place. A morning mode is definitely needed in HA. I think a second set of up/down triggers would work. That way I can still use the fast up/down with buttons and the quiet up/down in automations.
I also wanted to note I’m getting frequent disconnects after sending a command. Here’s the following error:
ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.soma.cover] Unable to reach device None (NOCONF)
ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.soma.cover] Connection to SOMA Connect failed
I’m thinking the polling is a little aggressive or it’s looking for feedback while the unit is still thinking about doing the command. I’m noticing this through the Google Home integration as well.
I will look into that as soon as possible. I hope maybe there is a way to add a service call or something for that. I’ve only ever written this one integration and that was almost a year ago now so it will most likely take some time for me to set the whole thing up and get back into the flow again.
The disconnects are kind of expected at this point. Polling currently actually tries to open a BLE connection to each motor at each poll. And these connection can fail, especially if there are multiple motors. I will have to check what we currently poll like this but a lot of things we can actually read from the motors without connecting because we put most of the important data into Advertising packets as well. I think the current integration only needs battery level and target position and both of these are definitely available in ADV packets as well. I will look into improving this as well. This will only change on the Connect itself though - HA will still use polling and the API for communication. I’m actually not sure how to do this correctly without polling. I personally prefer MQTT for everything and my own HA at home is set up with MQTT for most communications. But I’m not sure what the HA preferred method is for integrations.
Polling could be a bit too often right now but if I remember correctly it should be possible to change the polling interval somehow. I think it defaults to 30 s. Even if it’s not configurable now it should be super easy to make it configurable.
I’m hoping there will be some Black Friday discounts on Soma, if there is I will be purchasing! If you could add quiet mode, that would be brill as (I would do it, but I have no idea :)).
I’m sure there will be Black Friday deals. We are having meeting internally about those pretty much every other day right now. I think the deals will be mostly for the motors this year since the Raspberry Pi is so difficult to source now that we can’t really make any good deals for that. Motors I have adjusted to work around all the shortages so they are already being shipped to our distribution partners in the US and UK to be ready for Black Friday.
I haven’t had time to work on the quiet mode thing inside HA at all. The quiet mode is available in the API though so it can already be used with REST if needed. We have a Connect update coming very soon that will also expose the Light Level sensor from the motor solar panel to the API. This can then also be queried with REST while there is no integration specifically for that in HA.
Light Sensor data was going to be my next request. I want to use it when it’s super sunny during a certain time to lower the blinds halfway automatically
Light sensor data should be available shortly. It will be provided through Connect API so will require a manual update of the Connect. But we are also testing automatic updates for that already. Or if anyone wants to build an integration to query the BLE server on the motor directly they can contact me and I can guide you through that. A few months ago someone did that for Homey or some other system already and it seems to work well like that.
You can also set up automatic movements directly inside the motor (using our app) based on the light level seen at the solar panel.
Light level data will be provided in direct mV readings from the panel from now as we are still working on formulas to compensate for the drop in panel voltage when the battery starts charging. Ideally we would like to provide a lux reading but since the solar panels are not really mean for that this may be difficult to calibrate.
I could add a way to set the default for the Connect through the API. Or have a default on the motor itself. But I think all of those would still need a change on the HA integration side as well (to expose the switch for the default setting). So maybe the correct way to do that now would be to just add a default inside HA and whenever the integration calls a move command it would just use that default. In the longer term I think I will add these types of defaults into all the devices (motor, Connect…). And I’ve actually though about having Connect expose a configuration page on an internal web server as well (I think HA supports something like that now - a link to an integrations built in web page).
Just came across this topic, because I just noticed the Soma Smart Shaded 2 for the first time and would like to integrate it too.
However, I hear many here about it making a lot of noice. Can someone post a video about the amount of noice it makes? Would be really helpful for me and other users.
soma noise well thats a thing, I have been testing both ikea and soma and I can 100% say the soma is only noisy because of how fast it does the job, I actually set the speed of the soma down to match the speed of the ikea and funnily enough they are roughly the same level noise wise.
so is the soma loud, well no and yes. Yes if you want you blind to open and close in half the time of the ikea one and no if you want it to work at the same speed.
I was hoping to have my testing finished by now but with so many things to go through in my dive into the smart home rabbit hole its been a long one. (i am also testing the tilt too which is super handy and cant wait for them to add open and close both ways
If speed isn’t an issue - it isn’t for me, but I haven’t had time to ‘play’ yet - then the ‘morning mode’ may well do what you want, but would require some hacking to expose this option at the moment.
the thing is if speed is not a issue the soma can be slowed down to a nice quiet mode, thats the advantage of them, the fact you set the speed. which in turn controls the noise, I would say the soma system is good at controlling noise if you dont mind how quick they shut and open.
no its a setting in the app, you can adjust the speed in the app, then thats the speed saved so even ha calls to open and close run at the speed set in the app. I rate these highly tbh. and have not had to boost the battery at all, even though the solar panel is in shaded area facing north and not getting direct sunlight at all.
