Many of you may know me from the SmartThings forums where I've been active for the last 4 years and it's high time I started a thread here.
Full Disclaimer: We are dealers of Graber products, all our products are made to order at custom sizes and options.
This post is created with approval from Hubitat Support.
This thread will contain all information pertaining to these Z-wave shades and Hubitat.
What are Graber Virtual Cord Z-wave+ Shades?
Graber’s virtual cord shades utilize Z-Wave+ to operate and unlike other systems do not require a bridge. This means it can be directly integrated with Hubitat and other home automation systems. In Hubitat, it works as a shade and allows to any percentage and using. The motorization is manufactured by Somfy, but the system is designed by Graber (Springs Window Fashions).
I need to completely reset my shade and start over, what do I do?
Ans: To reset the shade, press and hold the button on the headrail. The button will flash green and eventually flash red. Once it cycles through all the colors and stops, the shade is reset. To double check simply tap the button and the shade will only move around 3 inches up or down. Notes to consider: When resetting the shade, its recommended to have the shade in a halfway open/close position vs fully open or fully closed; this makes things a lot easier to trouble shoot. Also when resetting a shade, you will have to repair the remote to the shade and set the upper and lower limits again.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is the difference between a roller & solar shade?
Roller shades are made of fabrics such as cotton, silk, polyester etc and come in light filtering or blackout. Blackout shades also come in Vinyl. Solar shades are made of a mix of fiberglass, vinyl, and other materials and also come in light filtering and blackout. Light filtering solar shades also have an openness factor (ranging from 1% - 25%), this basically means how much you can see through the shade and how much light it lets in. The shade in the video is a 1%. Normally 5% provides the ideal balance, anything higher and you will lose significant privacy at night time when your lights are on.
What is the difference between Even and Fashion Pleat shades?
The main difference between them is that the even pleat has small ladders on the back of the pleats ensuring the pleats open and close evenly. Fashion pleat doesn’t have these so when opening the pleat will seem to be uneven until it’s fully open or closed.
What are the available power options?
Battery (8 or 16 AA 1.5V batteries, depending on a single or dual battery case, battery power recommended for 10 shades or less), Recharageable 3100mah Lithium Ion Battery Pack, DC Transformer (plugs into any wall outlet), or a 10 Motor power supply that you can use for custom wiring in your home.
Can I use my own wiring for power?
You can while using the following multi motor power supply: Graber-motorization-multi-power-supply-specification.pdf - Google Drive
Only the specs for the 12v power supply is relevant. The other’s do not apply to the z-wave shades. The power supply can power normal somfy motors or the z-wave motors. For the z-wave motors each multi motor unit can power up to 10 roller/solar, natural and roman shades and up to 8 cellular or pleated shades.
Can I connect these to Amazon’s Echo or Google Home?
Yes, you can. Connect your Echo or Google Home to ST and enable access in ST for Echo or Google Home to control them. They work exactly like a dimmer switch, so turn on/off and set a specific percentage level.
What is the difference between Graber Virtual Cord and Bali Autoview?
Both are made by the same company with the key difference being Bali is a big box store brand while Graber is their premium line of products. You will notice slight quality differences where Graber is just a bit better. Pricing wise depending on the source you can usually get Graber for around the same price or lower than Bali.
Community Driver by @WindowWasher - Offers additional functionality vs the default used by Hubitat.
We have plenty of Feedback on the Hubitat Forums as well as the SmartThings forums.
36% off all Z-wave Shades, Coupon: Christmas-Zwave (expires Dec 25)
45% off all Z-wave Shades with extended lead times (8 - 14 weeks, usually 8 - 10 weeks), min order value $2000: Christmas-Zwave-E (expires Expires Dec 25, limited number of orders)
*NOTE: Lead times are typically 3 - 5 weeks for most orders however some orders have experienced an additional 2 - 3 week delay. Notices are sent out as we see delays.
Neal - I’m switching from ST to Hubitat with all my Graber virtual cords. Is there a way to reset upper and lower limits using Hubitat vs pairing a secondary 2 button remote?
I'm late to the party but thanks for posting. I am super happy with my Serena shades upstairs but the prices are getting even more ridiculous. I am therefore looking for an alternative for our 3 kitchen windows. Any chance you can extend the Hubitat promo code just for a little while as I need to get the fabric samples send through?
We wouldn't be able to extend the 40% which expires tonight, what you can do is place an order and put it on hold. As long as you are making changes to the same product (so fabric or size or options) we can make changes while retaining the discount for up to 90 days.
Hello All. I've recently become really dissatisfied with my Smartthings experience. The shades would constantly be offline or unresponsive. I know it was a Smartthings issue because my Zooz Z-wave light switches had a lot of problems with Smartthings as well.
I've purchased a Hubitat C-7 hub and am waiting for it to arrive. I'm curious to hear about the performance of these shades from users that came from Smartthings to Hubitat. Did you notice a difference in performance and connectivity?
I am on Hubitat, no issues on my end. But I have seen reports of one or two people on the hubitat forums saying they've had some stopping issues on the c7. I'll link if I can find them.
Thanks Neal. I have moved a lot of my devices over to Hubitat and am strongly considering moving my shades (22 in total). Right now I have both hubs running in parallel which is causing it's own set of logistical issues.
I'm a little bit nervous about moving all the shades over and then running into unexpected issues and having to move everything back to smartthings. I called Spring Window Fashions to ask about moving Shades into Hubitat and a lady from the motorization team told me she is not familiar with Hubitat and couldn't help me with that.
Transitioning seems like a lot of work. Is there a step by step transition guide for Smarthings to Hubitat and vice versa?
Also, I know you mentioned earlier in this thread that reprogramming a shade into the hub doesn't change the limit but when i reprogrammed one of my shades in Smartthings it did inexplicably change the limit. I also noticed the limits changing on a few shades when I had to reprogram the channels on the Autoview Premium Remote. I could not identify the cause as it happened to a random number of shades. Have you heard of this happening? It also goes back to the reason I'm nervous of transitioning to Hubitat. I don't want to reprogram the limit on 22 shades.
Hi Neal. I was following your videos and was able to pair a bali roller and its remote to the hubitat with no issue and still have the remote control the shade (thanks for the help!)
I have three layered blinds that I had paired as a group to one remote (up, down, home remote). To get the shades to pair to the hubitat I reset all of them and was able to pair the shades. I'm having issues getting all three shades to be a group with the one remote now. At one point it seemed like all three were paired to the remote as a group but only two shades would move. Can the group remote functionality be maintained when the shades are paired to a hub? Thanks
So the group remote should work, but, from what I understand you have a hub + 2 remotes paired to the same shades? Or did I misread?
Hub + 1 remote works well
Hub + 2 remotes, works most of the time. It's been wonky at times and has taken multiple attempts.
What I did as a work around, when I used ST (so similar should be possible in hubitat), add the remote to the network, then set up a rule in webcore to move the shade to specific positions based on button press on the remote (using a custom DH).
That would be the most reliable way if you plan to use more than 1 remote.
When I moved to hubitat I didn't use the remotes since no one in my family uses them.
