HD PowerView

I am considering to buy Powerview Duette shades (top-down & bottom-up) and control these by KNX through OpenHab 2.4. I would like to be able to move the shades to predefined scenes in the Powerview hub gen 2. The information I can find on the internet is very limited so I am very curious about your experiences so far. I understand you may not be using a KNX system in your set-ups but perhaps you are using another external system that acts the same way in passing commands to the Powerview Hub through OpenHab. Apart from my KNX wall switches I would also like to use Alexa to control my blinds. I had some email conversations with someone in the technical team of Powerview but their feedback has not yet convinced me that this is the solution I should go for. I still have the following concerns:

  1. How reliable is this total set-up, i.e. KNX/Other-OpenHab-Powerview-Shades? Providing my wifi is strong at every shade position, and my network is reliable, does it always works?
  2. How quick does Powerview respond to an external command, e.g. from KNX?
  3. Is it possible -from responsiveness & hub limitation perspective- to programme a shade up and down command in OpenHab, in a ‘push-move-up/down’ configuration, to achieve a manual opening or closing command for the time the button is pressed? Or would scenes with predefined positions be the preferred way of controlling the shades?
  4. Is it possible to receive feedback from the Powerview hub gen 2 on the position of the shades?
  5. How difficult it all is to implement? Does it take a long time to set up or is it all pretty straight forward? I already have a Raspberry Pi running OpenHab and taking with the KNX system…

I have no experience with KNX. But i do use powerview on openhab. I use a hub v1 though. I will try to answer your questions

I found the whole thing to be pretty reliable. I Think I sometimes i see a missed shade but that is far between.

It usually takes roughly a second, maybe too.

I use predefined positions (scenes) in the hub. You can link them to openhab. The reason is mostly esthetic. If you use a scene, all blinds start moving at the same time. If you use openhab to send positions (e.g. open 30%) each blind receives the command and responds individually, even when you use groups.

I think that the binding does not offer a stop command (I might be wrong). If this is the case, you cannot use a button to move the blind up, then stop is. I do use some enocean buttons to trigger scenes via openhab.

I think the items you assign to shade positions get updated automatically. However, there is no knowing what the shade position is as it is moving. So if you have a blind at 20% and you order it to go to 60%, it doesn’t tell you when it is at 30, 40 or 50%

I found it relatively straightforward. In my case i made scenes in the hub, linked them to openhab switch items with the paperUI, then programmed openhab to turn these switches on at the right time. The work is in the last step of course, but that has nothing to do with powerview.

Many thanks for your feedback that is very helpful and it surely gives me more confidence in the Powerview product. I have asked Powerview if they can develop a plug-in for KNX as for most professional home automation systems a plug-in is already available through their website but not for KNX. It hopefully would improve some of the response times as well, 1 second through OpenHab is actually not that bad but heard that Powerview through IFTTT or Alexa could take around 2 seconds to respond.

What type of shading are you using? I am interested in the top-down and bottom-up Duette shades, which have two motors. It would be good to hear from someones experience controlling these through OpenHAB or directly from a home automation system.

Hi Benoit,

Good to hear.

I use Duette shades, but the ones with one motor. As far as I can tell from the forums, you cannot fully control those via openhab. It seems you can set scenes and select those from openhab. You cannot control the second position directly. It looks like that option is in the works. See

and:

For me it wouldn’t be a deal breaker. I would just preprogram a lot of scenes and control those from openhab. Having the option to control all blinds individually sounds nice, but I found that in practice you want openhab to set certain scenes at certain times. E.g. only open the top op the blind in the bedroom when waking up.

Hi Mark I completely agree with you, reprogramming and activating scenes inside the hub I think would be sufficient for me as well. I would most likely have a top open scene, a fully open, fully close, and 1 in between (bottom open), so 4 scenes for each Duette shade. I assume you can programme and activate scenes for each blind individually, and receive the position for each blind individually as well? I guess the hub connects to your router, and any wifi access point in the house can communicate with the blinds. Is this correct, or is communication between shades and hub directly through RF? If the latter, how do you ensure the signal is strong enough in the whole house, are there extenders on the market?

I assume you can programme and activate scenes for each blind individually, and receive the position for each blind individually as well?

You can make a scene for as many blinds as you want. One blind up, one blind 25% etc.

I guess the hub connects to your router, and any wifi access point in the house can communicate with the blinds. Is this correct, or is communication between shades and hub directly through RF? If the latter, how do you ensure the signal is strong enough in the whole house, are there extenders on the market?

Yes, the hub communicates with your router. Just click in the network cable. You can control the hub from a phone or tablet. The hub then communicates with the blind with RF. There are extenders. You just plug them into an electric output. Works for me.

Just to inform you guys that I did a lot of new work on the HD PowerView binding, and there is a Pull Request for those changes here…

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