Hi all,
After a fair bit of research, I finally bought and installed a Velux blind for my fixed skylight here in the U.S. along with a KLF200 and wanted to share for those looking to do the same. (Probably information overload for others)
Velux Components:
- Solar Blinds for mounting to a Fixed Skylight (Model FS)
- KLI 312 1-way remote-control keypad. Came with the blinds.
Specifically: 3LI S12US
Model: BG-RC012-01
(Although similar to a KLI 100 is not a KLI 100) - KLF 200 (already loaded with version 0.2.0.0.71.0). Purchased separately.
Specifically: 3LF S02 US
Model-BE-RC010-01
Theses particular blinds are controlled by the io-homecontrol at 2.4GHz.
Specifically (looking through FCC docs), it uses the same radio channel(s) as Zigbee for channels 15, 20, and 25 (but no indication it runs Zigbee’s higher layer protocols). The power levels are around 10mW. Compared to WiFi of around 100mW, the io-home control power is quite a bit less, but then the bandwidths (around 250kbps) are much smaller and thus the higher power is not required.
KLF 200 comes with
- Couple of Manuals “A”(Installation/Setup of Legacy) and “B” (WiFi setup). For the most part Manual A can be ignored as it is written mostly for Legacy systems prior to 0.2.0.0.0.
- USB Power adapter and cables for powering the unit. Mine came with U.S. specific plug adapter.
- Lots of I/O cables for legacy systems. These will not be needed here.
- Ethernet LAN port. This is what HA uses to communicate with the KLF. Given possible distance limitations of the io-homecontrol, and the need for a physical LAN cable connection, one must consider an appropriate location for the KLF.
- io-homecontrol at 2.4GHz. (this model does not support 868MHz).
- WiFi AP and web server. The AP/Web server is used to setup the KLF-200 and for adding blinds with a mobile device (phone, tablet, i.e. a WiFi client). The AP password is written on the back of the unit, and is the one HA needs for logging into the KLF 200. The Webserver has a fixed http url klf200.velux and default password “velux123”. After bootup, the GUI is only available for 10 minutes.
– Login to the Webserver,
– Initially it asks if you want to configure the unit as a “Repeater” or as an “Interface”, but here it needs to be configured as an “Interface”.
– Control a Device. KLF gives you a couple of options for how to connect to the blinds, one of which is to search based on KLI that is already used to control the blinds. As I already had a KLI, I picked the “310/311/312” from the GUI. Here it wants to communicate with the KLI (to copy over its key codes) and the GUI provides the instructions for how to do this (the manual is no good as its for use with KLI 100). With the KLI 312 sitting next to the KLF200 I let the KLF200 discover the KLI 312 and copy over the data. Once done, the KLF200 creates an entry in the GUI for the blind named “blind 0”. Change the name, otherwise I found out HA will name it “cover.unamed_device”. At this point you can hit the “Identify” button on the GUI for this blind and you should see that blind move which tells you the KLF200 can now control the blinds. The GUI itself does not provide any real controls for the blinds (no up button, no down button, etc.)
– There are other configurable options for the KLF200, like static IP configuration, but make sure the LAN port is on always (which it is by default).
Home Assistant
- Configure HA to run the velux component and use the password on the back of the KLF200.
- My HA didn’t come up first time. The log shows " Connecting to KLF 200"…it never showed the “Connected to KLF 200” state. Apparently the velux component is not letting go of a thread and causes HA to sit there waiting forever (you won’t be able to get the HA GUI connected to HA). I rebooted both KLF200 and HA and the connection came up
Oh and BTW, the LED on the KLF200 flashes white until this connection is made. - HA discovered the blind from KLF200 and created a cover with a position slider and up/down arrows. The position slider and up/down arrows are updated once the blind reaches the desired position. If the KLI 312 is used, the HA arrows and slider position are still updated but be patience, its not instant.
- Connectivity: The KLF allows for two sockets at a time and times out if idle, but pyvlx appears to send a keep alive message to keep the connection up all the time. I have once run into an Errno 111 (connection refused), but not sure if it is related to the HA reboot bug reported in this thread (I haven’t yet installed the patch that tears down the connection on HA reboot). I’m currently still running 0.94.
Hope this is helpful to others.