Hello, I purchased from Ebay US and they now offer a flat fee to a global distribution network. I did the same for the Iris keypads it's pretty good.
Thanks for that. I’ll have a look. I still haven’t bought a hub/bridge for my motorised blinds so when I saw this I got very interested. I presume it’s powered by PoE or USB rather than US 110v?
No worries. I think I purchased mine 2nd hand from someone in the US on Ebay but it's been fine. I don't run mine on PoE (but you easily could) i just run it off a 5v 3.1amp USB GPO in my study. I may move it one day but honestly it takes no space and it's central to the entire house so I will probably leave it.
EDIT: Somfy works flawlessly with the Bond so don't be worried it's worth the $$$
Just wanted to say hi, just finished setting up my HE after moving from Domoticz. So far it's been really good.
4 Likes
Unfortunately I went with Rollease motors instead of Somfy. I’ve just been in contact with the Bond Bridge developers and they do not support Rollease and it is not on their roadmap either. There was some community effort to get Rollease support for Bond but it looks like it ended up in the too hard basket. I’m now stuck with having to get Rollease’s hub instead which I can only integrate with Hubitat through IFTTT. I did look forward to the local control through the Bond bridge...
Bummer. What made you go with those motors in the end? Good price?
Hi mate,
I hope you’ll find that you’re onto a good thing here. Great community and the Hubs not too bad either. LOL
1 Like
It was between Luxaflex blinds with Somfy motors and the Rollease blinds with motors. Rollease was thousands cheaper.
1 Like
Yeah fair enough, while I love my Somfy motors they are not cheap, that said my wife and I didn't need our entire house done only specific areas so that helped keep costs down. Anyways I am sure IFTTT will see you through until bondhome.io brings the support one day as mentioned here.
1 Like
Im not holding my breath though. This is what @bond-merck replied with on their forums: “There is no timeline for Rollease support, sorry. ”
Yeah I wouldn't count on it being quick, if it's not on an existing roadmap then you would have to think it's going to be 12-24 months away (at least). The other option is you could probably hack your Rollease remotes by soldering a multi relay system to it. Excuse the high-level picture i just threw together but you will get the idea plus you'd need another set of relays to turn on/off, up/down etc I skipped that part.
EDIT: I did some googling and I found this which is probably your best route and you already ordered the Pulse hub right?
EDIT: I'd reach out to these guys they are talking about it a lot. At the bottom there is even mention of Homekit integration so it seems you have a few options here to investigate.
1 Like
Precisely. RA is high on our wishlist, but not yet on the roadmap because the protocol is undocumented and not understood. No way we could estimate how long it would take to figure out...
1 Like
Thanks for the info. I’ll go down the IFTTT route to see what it’s like. I’ll be able to get automations that aren’t time sensitive going this way at least. I also want voice control through Alexa and I’ll start off just using Hubitat for this as well. But if the delay through IFTTT is too long I’ll just use the native Alexa support on the Pulse hub for this. It’s gonna muck up HE’s understanding of what state the blinds are in but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it 
One problem at a time. I just need to get my hands on the hub first which seems to be harder than expected...
1 Like
Honestly if you can get MQTT working via that serial connection on the Pulse hub that would be bloody fast. I actually think that's your best bet, anyways maybe @daveh (he was chasing this too) and you can both investigate that route and document it for others if successful.
@bond-merck, will Bondhome.io support "Nice" branded motors? I have outdoor blinds using these Italian motors but the remote have rolling RF codes.
Cheers
Hi Clarence. If Bond doesn't support them, the Neo Smart Controller (which I own) supports them. See here. I initially built a driver for it and @brianwilson has taken it to the next level with his fork, so you're covered for HA integration.
1 Like
Thanks @bigrizz do you need to know the RF codes for the controller to work? At first glance, there is not much information on how to connect the controller to the motors? I have 3 motors, does it mean 3 controllers?
Hi Clarence. The way the controller works is you download the mobile app to your phone and input a code that corresponds to your blind manufacturer then the app guides you through the rest of the process. You don't need to know the RF codes and the one controller does your whole house, assuming all your blinds are from the same manufacturer (at least I assume this. It may be possible to have more than one manufacturer's blinds, if they are supported by the Neo, but I'm not certain). The RF codes are already pre-programmed in the controller. The process may vary slightly depending on the blind motor manufacturer. For mine at least, it went something like this.
- Input manufacturer code into app:
- Put first blind into pairing mode using the RF remote that came with my blinds.
- Pair blind via mobile app.
- Input name of blind.
- Put second blind into pairing mode.
- Pair second blind with app.
- Input second blind name.
- Allocate blinds to rooms in the house. In my case, both blinds are on our deck.
- Add blinds to groups. In my case, just one group for the deck. That allows you to control both blinds simultaneously.
- Add Neo Smart to Google Home (optional for voice control).
It was a very straightforward process and the app is really nice. I'm assuming it's local control from the app as the response is almost instantaneous through the app. I'm yet to get to it but my intention is to do something funky with my HE to control the blinds based on weather and whether we are home or not. Hope that helps.
I like the look of that keypad. Have you set it up? I'm assuming you use it for security? I want to do something for security to arm/disarm the system on entering/exiting the house. I was thinking about using my wife and my mobiles for presence detection but we have other situations where we have a cleaner and mum/sister come to the house when we're not home, so not sure how to cater for them. A keypad could be a good choice. Did you buy them new or used on eBay?
1 Like
That's the combination of devices I have.
- Iris V2 keypad for Arming / Disarming via "others"
- Presence automatically Arming / Disarming for my wife and I.
It's been working very well. Especially since I also wired the keypad up to a UPS of sorts. (Home rigged charger and battery, both stored in a fire proof baggy - just for safety)
