Adding wireless control to rotary 3-wire AC roller shutter switch

Hardware DIY
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1

At home we have 3 roller shutters that are operated through a rotary switch with 3 positions:

  • Left = raise the blinds
  • Center = Do nothing
  • Right = lower the blinds

In essence, this switch will power either the “up” or the “down” wire of the shutter with 230VAC. The motor will then know if it needs to open or close the blinds.

The end positions of the roller shutter are calibrated at the motor side (two potentiometers can be tweaked to adjust the end positions).

I’d now like to add automation to these roller shutters, and am looking for solutions that will work with our setup at home. I basically need to switch 230VAC. Since we already have Z-Wave and Zigbee at home, I’d rather use wireless technologies for now.

The bare minimum I need, is to operate the shutters as we do now: fully open, fully close, stop. If possible, it would be great to also define roughly intermediate positions, e.g. “5% open” to allow ventilation without having to fully open the roller shutters.

Any recommendations?

2

I use a sonoff double switch for that (wifi).
Make sure you set the toggle mode so you can never set up and down at the same time.
Be careful since it’s a software protection, not a hardware.
If you google for ‘sonoff t1 2ch interlock’ you can find some more info

3

I eventually picked the Fibaro roller shutter switch as I already have a Z-Wave network in the attic.

The Fibaro modules arrived Friday, and today I wired one for the first time. The only things I had to do beside pairing, was (1) calibrating (first choose “force calibration”, then set to “calibrated”) and (2) set the operation mode to toggle switch (temporary switch being the default).

The weird thing is that the Fibaro module (1st floor) was immediately recognized while the roof shutters (attic) often lose Z-Wave connection. I suppose that the Z-Wave antenna is missing in the roof shutters…