I actually used Echo speaks to integrate the shades with HE thru the Alexa skill for quite some time. That actually worked really well. If my Zone had not gone bad I probably would have never thought about using the Bond bridge.
When you say Echo, do you mean the Plus or Show models that has a hub built into it, or are you referring to the skills in Alexa? I have the leviosa Alexa skill and know that I can command the shades through Alexa. I also have the HE skill in Alexa, but haven’t done anything with it yet. Are you saying that I can manage leviosa shades in HE through those connections, as in built automation with other devices in HE?
I am. You of coarse need the Leviosa Zone. You create a virtual shade for each Leviosa shade and then when that virtual shade is activated it triggers a RM rule to control the actual Leviosa shade. You can use echo speaks. It will allow you to send a Alexa command to a any Alexa device just as if you speak to it directly. So the RM rule will send out the command "Alexa ask leviosa to open living room shade".
This will not work without internet as it is cloud based, but it worked really well for me. I basically do the same thing now except I am now using the Bond bridge to simulate the remote to send the command to the Leviosa shade as opposed to a Alexa command.
This is awesome, thank you! I'll mess with this in the next couple days.
Do you know if this same concept will work with Lutron Caseta lights & shades instead of having to get the pro bridge from lutron and talking over telnet?
As I remember, I just went through the bond setup for a shade and let it learn the remote. It has worked really well. Have had much less trouble with it than I did with the Leviosa Zone. I made a slight modification to the bond shade driver, along with a open or close, which opens or closes the shade completely. My modification also allows you to use raise and lower, which raises or lowers to the next set point.
I see, I didn’t realize the bond replicates the RF signal, I was thinking it was some kind of direct connection to the shades. Thanks.
Well that is about as direct as you get with most pieces of wireless hardware, it has to be some kind of wireless signal whether Zigbee, Z-wave or Wifi.
The Bond hub integration is local, so that is another plus over the Zone method.
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Any progress with a native integration of Leviosa blinds? I have 5 that i used to use with ST
I have been happy with the Bond hub, it works really well with the Leviosa shades.
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Yeah hoping to not have to add another hub to mix. I removed ST, although there are a few things it can do HE can't yet but would love to not add another one.
Well you either have to have use the Leviosa Zone, or The Bond hub. So you have to add something.
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I have a Leviosa Zone but just no way to make it talk to Hubitat as far as I can tell. I can link it to Google or homekit but that wont get it into HE and I may just have to add ST back and connect to that and then go Hub to Hub but again hoping to limit the number of hubs.
I initially used the ST integration and via HubConnect tied it to HE.
I then switched to the Alexa integration, using Echo Speaks I was able to to tie the shades into HE with that.
Both of those methods worked but the Bond bridge method, IMO has been the best as it is a local solution. You need the internet to setup the bridge, but it once done it is all handled on the local network.
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@terminal3 I was able to finally connect with someone at Leviosa and they are looking to get HE integration. Is this something you want me to connect you with them on?
Not really as I have switched over to using a bond bridge. My Leviosa Zone stopped working and I never could get anyone at Leviosa to respond to me. I had purchased the bond bridge to use with a fan and it works well with the shades. I don't plan on buying another Leviosa Zone so it won't really help me.
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I've been researching motorized shade options and I'm curious about your bond driver modification. How did you go about it and how can I do the same?
The information I've gotten so far from Leviosa has been sparce so I'm looking for viable options to incorporate motorized blinds into my home automation environment.
Its been awhile, but setting up the Bond hub was just going through it's setup. Add a shade and learn the remote, I think. If I remember correctly I had to learn the remote for each shade. Maybe I only had to do it once I really cant remember.
Once you can control the shades with the bond hub and app you then need the HE app and driver to control them through HE. I am using the community version of the Bond hub integration. The built in HE version will work but it will only fully open or close the shade. I actually had to modify the community driver to use a command so I could raise and lower the shade to the next setpoint. When using the bond app there is a Open Next and Close Next item for each shade. This will move the shade to it's next programmed setpoint. I could not get the developer of the community app to add it, so I did it myself. I think the community developer had stopped supporting the app, but I had the same issue with the HE team. I requested they add it but they never would even respond to me, saying yes or no that they would do it. So I just keep using the community version, which is available through HPM.
I assume you are aware but you can integrate through HE using the Leviosa Zone. I used the zone for quite some time. It has an Alexa integration and I used echo speaks to send voice commands. That worked pretty well, but it was not local and will not work if internet is down. The bond integration is local and you can control the shades locally with no internet.
Thanks for the reply and additional detail. Regarding the Leviosa Zone, it took a while, but I finally was able to get support to send me the info they had on their API, which wasn't much. As you mentioned, it's cloud based and I want to avoid solutions that are internet dependent.
I've been doing some research and found a wireless motor unit for retrofitting roller shades that isn't internet dependent. It appears to be compatible with a variety of RF hubs so I'm thinking of ordering one to test. I already have a hub, so if this works out I think it would be a simpler solution and avoid the need for an additional hub and one less thing to manage.
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