Ikea Blinds.... oh dear

[ginnyaction]

So I read all 405 posts on the long (now closed) thread. I think I am getting some understanding, but for those of you who have them I am looking at this.

Will be 4 shades in my bedroom. 3 rooms away from the HE Hub.

I have zero zigbee devices at this time... so NO MESH.

I add the Ikea Blinds driver to HE.

I will take one of the zigbee boosters that come with the blinds and put it one room away from the HE Hub, and then a 2nd booster the next room over.
I will then install the first shade and pair it with a third Zigbee booster and HE.
Then the other 3 shades also pairing (holding up close to the battery during pairing ) that 3rd booster.

Now I kind of get lost. Questions

How do I group all 4 to operate in tandem? Do I set up a virtual dimmer switch that operates all 4 shades?

Pairing with Alexa. Did not understand. Several posts talk about her telling the switch to turn on (open) and off (close), but then others said I could use open and close???

Lastly, so the Ikea remotes don't work. I have the Zooz Remote Switch. Is there a way to use it to open and close the shades?

Lastly, what am I missing? What advice can you give me? Thanks Tons. Ginny

[FriedCheese2006]

I have five of these in a room. I use Room Lighting to group them.

This will group them and create a virtual device (will be the one under "activator device" where you'll give it a name). The virtual device can then be used to command the shades as a group.

The other nice part is that you can easily set a schedule. My wife's desk is in this room so I automatically open/close the blind during the work week (Vary Light Settings per Time Period). If you use modes, you can configure per mode as well.

If you copy my setup, the blinds will auto open/close at the specified times and you can also use the activator device for ad-hoc changes.

I'm not sure on the Alexa part. I use the community integration for Google Home so I just have the activator device pushed over. I presume you'll be able to add the activator device to Alexa.

Correct, no dice on the remotes. They use non-standard ZigBee that doesn't play well with the hub.

You can certainly use the remote through a few different means.

1. Setup rules in Button Controller. This will give you the option to specify the blinds setting with each button type (e.g., single tap up is open, single tap down is close, double tap up is fully open, double tap down is fully closed (the buttons are numbered)).
2. You can add the button device as a "means to activate" and "means to turn off" to the Room Lighting instance.

[ginnyaction]

Thank you

[davidcwright59]

If you are going to use Alexa for control, I would advise that you make an Alexa Routine in the Alexa app. It seems to me that Alexa "hears you better" if she knows what to listen for.

[ginnyaction]

Fixing to try this...but quick question, do i setup the virtual switch first, and what type switch do i setup?

[FriedCheese2006]

If you go the Room Lighting route, it'll setup the virtual device for you if you fill out the field under "Activator Device".

You'll then use that virtual device for automations and what-not.

Here's some better screenshots of my setup:

Main Setup

Schedules

With this configuration, the blind are open halfway Monday-Friday at 9:30 am and then closed at 6 PM on the same days. Nothing is done on the weekends.

I have the "Activator Device" exposed to Google Home. Using Google Home, I can tell it to open/close/part open the shades.

Here's the activator device that is auto-created:

Device

So you can see, it has all the generic shades/blinds commands. Again, following my setup as is, I can do any automation to make a change to the virtual device and it will make that change to all the devices in Room Lighting (this isn't always the case with Room Lighting; just how it works in this particular setup).

[user3464]

I have fifteen of these. I have rule machine rules to raise or lower them (taking into account sun position if it's hot out). I then call those rule actions when needed (using virtual buttons on a dashboard, or real ones). No need to group.

With regard to Alexa, I would create groups there '[room] shades group', and you can say '[room] shades up', for example.