VELUX KLF 200 pairing with Somfy IO motors and remotes

Configuration
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I want to share my experiences as I couldn’t find much information when I was searching about the KLF 200 (part of Velux Integra line).
I have 9 Somfy IO motors for rolling shutters in my house and I wanted to control them by Home Assistant. All shutters came installed with their dedicated IO controller programmed by the installer of the shutter (Smoove 1 and Situo 5).
As the IO protocol is closed you need a device that you can control and that can speak IO. Somfy has their own devices which require internet connection to the Somfy API to control your devices, which I didn’t like. I was looking for something local.

I bought mine online for 174 euros shipping included (making it the most expensive part of my HA setup, together with the comfoconnect box to control my ventilation unit).

The velux KLF 200 gateway is designed to control velux devices but as they speak IO you can pair Somfy IO motors to it as well. The main purpose of the KLF200 is to connect hardwired switches to the KLF and translate those controls to IO controls. Additionally it has its own local API accessible over ethernet which is what I was interested in.
HA has an integration for this device so you need only to add a couple of lines of configuration for it to work which is of course much easier than tinkering around with the velux python libraries (pyvlx) or directly accessing the local API (for which the complete reference is available online).

One common misconception about the KLF200 is that it can only control five devices. You can only connect five hardwired switches but you can pair up to 200 IO devices (according to the manual). Anyway, I could connect nine IO motors without issue.
My device came delivered with firmware 0.2.0.0.71.0 which is the newest at the moment.

Setup went easy: plug in the USB charger (included) and connect ethernet. It sets up a private wifi network.
Connect to the wifi network provided by the KLF and surf to address klf200.velux (as by instructions).
Once there, you can configure things like DHCP and device password and you can pair your IO devices.
You can also configure it to disable its wireless after a while. When you need to configure it again, you just restart the device.
The configuration web interface seems accessible over its private wifi network only. But you can access the API over its wired connection.

To pair Somfy devices, the instructions written by spigot earlier work perfect:

  1. Login to KLF200 web interface
  2. Pick the remote control for the shutter you want to pair or on the remote control, select which roller shutter you want to pair. Move the shutter down a bit.
  3. On the remote control, hold “PROG” button for few seconds → roller shutter should go “up”/“down” a little bit to indicate it is in pairing mode.
  4. Release “PROG” button.
  5. Click “search new device” button in KLF200 web interface.
  6. Within 10-20 seconds KLF discovers the new motor.
  7. You can give a name to the motor. This name is reflected in HA.

In HA, after you included the velux integration, you can control them as just another shutter: e.g. cover.shutter2 where “shutter2” is the name you give it in the KLF interface.

Example code for a button moving rolling shutter number 2 to 15 percent open (e.g. to shade from sun but still let some light in)

- type: button
    icon: 'mdi:theme-light-dark'
    tap_action:
      action: call-service
      service: cover.set_cover_position
      service_data:
        entity_id: cover.shutter2
        position: 15

For now (two months after installing) the device works fine

  • HA exposed the newly added IO devices after restarting HA
  • connection HA-KLF seems stable for the moment
  • range seems OK: no issues with KLF located on one side of the house controlling IO motor on other side of the house through concrete floor.
  • the original remote controls still work without issue
  • the gateway works two-way: HA reports the actual position of the shutter
  • you might run into issues with the ssl authentication on the router, sometimes you need to do a hard reboot. The documentation for the component shows you how to initiate a soft reboot when you stop HA which migh prevent this issue. (error message SSL handshake is taking longer than 60.0 seconds)
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