Hello - I am new to the HA community - moving over from HomeSeer (HS4). I have a decent amount of experience in home automation in general, but only a few weeks with Home Assistant. I am loving it so far!
I ran into this fairly well known random “stalling” issue with the RSZ1 shades about 6-7 years ago when I originally set up my Bali / Graber / SWF RSZ1 shades. On the way up or down, the shades will randomly slow down and stop and a red light on the shade turns on. The shade is then unresponsive for a while or until you reverse the direction with the remote.
I was able to work around the issue by having HomeSeer send a Z-Wave value of 1000 to close the shades and 1001 to open the shades instead of the normal 0 and 99 values.
I can’t remember how I came up with that solution - maybe tracing what values the VCZ1 remotes were actually sending (?)…but using that workaround, the shades worked flawlessly for years. The issue would still occur randomly when trying to partially open the shades by sending a Z-Wave value between 0 and 99, but that’s not really part of our daily use case and we can live without it.
I can’t seem to replicate that workaround in Home Assistant. It appears that the Z-Wave JS integration only supports setting values between 0 and 99…and that lines up with the Z-Wave specs I have researched. So I’m not exactly sure how HomeSeer was able to set those 1000 / 1001 values - or perhaps it was doing something different behind the scenes. Maybe it’s as easy as defining a different command class when setting the Z-Wave value - my Z-Wave knowledge is somewhat surface level.
I also reached out to Bali Support and they couldn’t even spell firmware. They gave me an email address for motorization support. It was all a waste of time. My shades are all on the 11.2 firmware by the way. If anyone can send me a semi-current firmware update file for the RSZ1, I will kiss you. No questions asked.
Outside of that… Are there any HA / Z-Wave veterans that can help apply my workaround to Home Assistant? It would be greatly appreciated as the WAF scores in my house are fading quickly every time these silly shades stall. While I feel HA is a huge upgrade over HS4 in many ways, this could be a deal breaker for our home.
I myself, I don’t think I’ve ever had this happen (Bali cellular shades from 2016), and I don’t know of a way to do your workaround, but maybe some things to try:
use the switch entity (full open/close) instead of the cover entity (position/level setting).
Bring the blinds closer to the controller, do a heal and sometime later try it and see if that prevents the stall. (just wondering if it is network related).
If you are using an automation to open/close the blinds, then you could probably trigger another automation to check a little later to see if the current position is where it should be and if not, try to reposition it again
I tried your first suggestion to use the switch entities for the past week and haven’t seen any stalls since! I had been ignoring them because they don’t seem to stay in sync with the cover entity, but that doesn’t matter for just issuing open/close (on/off) commands.
In case it helps anyone else, I created a helper Group that contains the switch entities. Then I changed the “Show switch as” setting on the new helper Group to “Cover” so I can tell Google to Open/Close the group of shades.
Just out of curiosity - what firmware version are your shades running?
I spoke too soon. The random stalls are still occurring when using the group of switch entities, just with less frequency than when using a group of cover entities. I also tried using Z-Wave multicast but the same random stall issue occurred.
But good news - I was able to find a kind stranger online who sent me the 11.3 firmware upgrade file. I have upgraded all my shades and the issue seems to be resolved! (knock on wood)
Would anyone be willing and kind enough to share the firmware with me also?
I’ve recently moved into a house with some of these shades, and have been tearing my hair out trying to get one to work reliably without stopping half-way or failing to respond!
After a lot of trial and error and blaming my Z-Wave controller, I finally found some topics on this and, lo and behold, the problematic blind is running v11.0, and the rest are all running v11.3!
These issues sound similar to mine. I too transitioned over from Homeseer. I had roller shades freezing partway down or up for no apparent reason using Homeseer and their ZNet controller.
After transitioning to home assistant, I don’t seem to have as many partial opens/closes, but the shades seem to randomly lose connection to the Zooz 800 ZST39 LR stick I have connected to my HA Yellow setup. I’m using the battery monitor blueprint and I get alerts that the battery status is lost for some of the shades every once in a while. These shades will also then not respond to any commands from home assistant. But if I use the remote that came with the shades, they respond immediately with no problem.
I currently have automations that open and close a large group of shades at once and have been considering staggering some of the shades by a second or two, in case the commands aren’t reaching a shade or two because of conflict. But that doesn’t address the issue where battery status just drops out and the shades don’t respond. So I’m thinking that won’t help.
Most of my blinds are at 12.1 firmware while a couple are at 11.2 (I have 8 separate shades). Looking right now it’s two of the 12.2 ones that are not connecting to HA. So it doesn’t appear the same firmware update described above would help me. 7 of the shades are also right next to each other in the same room, so I can’t see it being a range issue from the controller.
So I’m somewhat at a loss for what to do to troubleshoot. If anyone has thoughts/suggestions, would appreciate them!
So I am having the exact same issue with 6 of these blinds running RSZ1
by Springs Window Fashions firmware 14.4 and 14.7. All of the 14.7 blinds drop out all the time and it is driving me friggin insane. I have to go unplug them and the back in again and they work fine. It is always just one of the blind randomly that go offline. I am running the Silicon Labs 700 USB and HA Core 2024.8.3 and OS 13.1. I also have an Actiontec 7 zWave Extender for what it is worth…
I’m running 14.7 and they chose to replace my entire home, they were a week old, with newer firmware devices than just provide the file. I hope this resolves my battery issues too. If anyone has found an inexpensive solar panel for these, I’d be interested.
For solar I bought the below lithium ion rechargeable packs (mine blinds originally came with non rechargeable AA battery holders). I had to cut the connectors off of my AA holders and solder on to the Li Ion packs since they had different connectors.
somfy Lithium Ion Battery Pack and Charger Bundle - Power and Charge Blinds, Shades Curtains - Long Lasting, Easy to Install - includes Wall Mounting Clips - #9021217, 9025166 Amazon.com
Then I connected the below solar panels to the back of the Li Ion packs (no connector change needed).
Somfy WireFree Li-ion Solar Panel Kit - Solar Panel Power - for Somfy RTS Motorized Shades, Blinds and Curtains - Long Lasting, Easy to Install - includes Brackets, and Glass Mount Adhesive #9027294Amazon.com
Has the 11.3 firmware actually solved the issue for you? Have been dealing with this same exact issue on these same blinds and not able to make any progress in resolving the problem at all.
Would love to hear from anyone else that’s experienced this problem and actually fixed it so that these blinds work reliably all the time.
11.3 DEFINITELY fixes the stall. I was a beta tester when it was being developed.
Unfortunately I did not keep copies of the firmware due to NDAs thT were signed at the time. But yes. I had 6 blinds with fw below 11.2 and they all stopped that particular stall. I now have 12 units all with fw above 11.3 and they’re all fantastic. Except an issue with a bank of 6 grouped blinds… See next.
Now these are other stalls I’m seeing related to ZWave weirdness that are not related to the 11.3 stall fix. It’s more related to ZWave multicast and the behavior of the blinds.
The only way I know of is get hold of a Graber or Springs window fashions distributor and ask them
Bali is for big box stores and are cheaper because basically no support. Home Depot and Menards are definitely not giving firmware (and why I advise people not buy smart devices there)
Look up your local Graber dealer and explain the issue. If they’re any good at all they should be able to help you get Graber /Springs support.
Im searching for a new local distributor myself because ZebraBlinds closed shop. (shame) and I’ll be sure to ask when I locate one.
Well crap. I feel like an ass calling a distributor and asking them to support hardware that they didn’t sell me. Bummer that there is no easy way to just download those from somewhere.
I ordered Bali blinds via Costco and Home Depot, and for both resellers I received an order number that I could register with my account at the Bali Blinds web portal, which also has a form for support that I used multiple times to resolve order issues and each time Springs replied promptly and helpfully.