Well, so here is my experience after integrating the Velux controller. It crashes from time to time and then simply hangs until power cycled. I have not found a pattern yet. So it’s far away from reliable and I’m back at square 1. When it works the controlling works fine, but at the current stage I’m just looking forward to replacing the Somfy motors with something else.
Did you try using an RFXTRX433XL with these? No cloud connection needed for it to work and very reliable operation (in my experience). Mine have been working for 2 yrs now and operate every day without fail.
Will take a look, thank you
There’s a little work in getting them setup but there’s lots of guides on the process. Involves putting each motor into “program mode” whilst the RFXTRX433XL is “listening” via RFXMNGR in Windows, to pick up each blind ID
Note though that I have the io-homecontrol motors/remotes. They operate on around 868 MHz if I’m not mistaken. I guess the RFXTRX433XL is for the older RTS wireless technology?
Ah, well then the RFXTRX is not going to work there. I have seen (but never used) dual-band devices
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I would like to give another update on this topic with the Velux KLF200. It seems I wasn’t completely fair with my initial judgement, though the device exhibits some unexpected behaviour.
So as long as you don’t touch it, everything runs very stable and reliably. It seems though that new connections to the KLF200 are only possible in a limited period of time after boot. When you restart the Velux Binding after some time for example, it will not be able to re-establish the network connection anymore, the port simply doesn’t allow any new connections. I made a rule that upon openHAB startup the KLF200 is restarted by powering off and on a remote controllable power plug where it is attached to. Then after it rebooted the binding can successfully connect again. Also it seems to be a problem to issue a lot of commands to the Velux in quick succession - the box then hangs and also needs to be restarted. Like for example when you want to open or close several shutters at the same time. I solved this by recording “scenes” in the KLF 200 and then only triggering those scenes via openHAB, which is only one command. It’s some effort, and since the KLF 200 lacks a backup capability, will be lost if the box dies, but it’s the only reliable way I found to do this.
So to summarize: as long as nothing extraordinary happens the KLF200 runs fine. But is it resilient to things going wrong: no.
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I am in front of a window replacement at my property. This includes 16 new Rollershutters… try to find an easy and reliable OH implementation with good positioning. Best without talking to somewhere in the internet…
Currently using dumb Somfy’s for 4 Rollershutters 1 with Fibaro zWave and 3 with Shelly’s
All of them working properly but exact positioning is a challenge at first, since man need to trial and error to find the correct value for specific positions.
Therefore I have some questions to KLF200
@Celaeno1:
do you also experience this behavior on your KLF200 installation?
@dr.gonzo:
since your last information is quite a while ago, has something changed in the meantime within your installation? KLF200 may updated? Is the behavior still the same?
Hello Mav63, from my side I don’t have any news. I did several OH updates in between (always staying at the most recent OH version) and the Velux/KLF200 still work fine but exhibit the behaviour described above. No problem as long as everything stays running, then the KLF200 proves to be very reliable.
The KLF200 hangs up from time to time, I guess one time every two or three month. After a power cycle and/or restarting the velux binding or a complete OH Server it is running again. But the reason for this is probably the network connection. I use Devolo dLAN for the network connection to KLF200.
Thanks a lot for your response!
One more question raised in the meantime: Is there a limit of IO rollershutters per KLF200.
I read something of 5 unit limit… but I planned to control 16-20 units…
Does somebody control more than 5 units already?
Thanks for your feedback
/Mav
I have 7 io units via radio. The limit is up to 100 or more. The 5 units limit is for wired devices connectet via wire directly to KLF200.
I’d like to reopen this discussion with a similar topic. I have read your discussion and experiences with interest.
My setting:
I have 16 rollershutters (large ones, slats) in my home, all with dumb motors and a Somfy RTS receiver box in the cable. All was installed by the previous owner ~18 years ago. All are controlled with Somfy Telis 4 remotes. I have also integrated them on my Somfy Tahoma Box and this is connected as a bridge to Openhab.
All is installed in one floor, but with some concrete walls and metal cladding in between, and a distance of 8-15 meters between controller (openHAB or Somfy) and each blind.
The problem:
The installed RTS receivers are slowly starting to fail. And in addition, the Tahoma Box is end of life soon.
So, how would I approach this? My prerequisites are:
- 1.Bidirectional control, I want to know where the blinds are in the future solution. RTS was a bummer on this aspect, as it was always guesswork if the blind did receive a command or not.
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- Must work with local remotes or wall switches in addition to smarthome solution
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- Good integration in openHAB neccessary
As I see it, I could either just replace the Somfy remote receiver in the cables with new ones (i.e. IO system) and get a new Somfy gateway. (Although I have read somewhere, that the new consumer-line gateway does not have a good remote range).
Or I could eliminate the current remote operation, hardwire the blinds to a wall controller which then can be integrated in openHAB by a radio protocol. Which would you recommend? I read a lot about Z-Wave, but my own experience with this protocol is somewhat mixed. Also, the current Somfy setup has been working for almost 20 years. Can Z-Wave deliver the same?
Any new suggestions?
@Jochen_Klumpp
I have 15 somfy rts blinds on 2 floors. Two years ago I switched from a separate Tahoma box to a rfxtrx transmitter directly attached to the openhab raspi. Main reason was that I wanted a completely cloud-free solution without gateways, that runs even without internet.
I have absolutely zero problems with that solution. With a little bit of rule-magic the blinds can move to discrete positions quite well, almost like bidirectional ones (I would never again buy something with io).
Additionally I have some shelly25 for controlling blinds. Works very well but I’m missing the fallback possibility. I want everything to work even when systems or networks fail. That’s why I’m thinking about replacing the shellys with intertechno itl-500 receivers. Those can be controlled directly with a 433mhz remote control in case of system problems.
So maybe rfxtrx might be a solution for you if you don’t want to replace everything. Additionally you can control almost any 433Mhz device with it.