SmartWings Shades

Just purchased two Honeycomb/Cellular shades with Zigbee motors. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to actually pair these with my Hubitat C7. I held the motor button down for 6 seconds till the shades jog twice, then I try to manually add a Zigbee device and the system just times out after 90 seconds of trying to look for a device. Am I totally missing something right now or am I just being a Hubitat noob? Surely it shouldn't be this difficult? Motor: WM24F/Z.

I just bought three of these shades.

Two work and paires with my c7, while the third doesn't get into pairing mode at all.

I reached out to their support as well.
If you figure out the issue, please let me know.

I finally got them to work and I couldn't figure out why. I reached out the Smartwings and they told me you need to have the blinds taught with a remote first before you can pair them. The two that worked was probably already factory paired/taught with the remote. Do the remote pairing, then teach the top and bottoms before you try C7 pairing. Man I spent hours on this...Now I need help getting them added into a group and controlling them via a group. Not sure how to do this yet. I added them as dimmers in a group so it would show up in the devices tab. But any controls I shoot into it are not working, so I'm obviously doing something wrong. Also the battery is showing up as 100% even after a day or two, so something else might be weird there as well.

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What do you mean do remote pairing?
I already paired a single remote to all of them.
Two were able to enter Zigbee pairing and the third wasn't...
It's all very frustrating...

Battery staying at 100% makes sense, It's rated at 600 ups and downs, so it doesn't surprise me that you didn't see any battery decline.

That's what I thought too when I paired the remote. But I think you need to make sure the top and bottom positions are also set as well. Not 100% sure though. I may test this out on my next set of blinds -> factory reset, pair remote, don't teach top and bottom positions, and try to pair with C7 to see if it enters zigbee pairing mode.

I ended up doing a factory reset and setting up all limits from scratch.
Still not discoverable / won't go into pairing mode.

I noticed that the battery level only updates when a command is sent such as open or close, but it doesn't update battery with refresh? I would like to poll the battery levels every so often but there doesn't appear to be a way to do this? Thanks,

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Any updated thoughts on the SmartWings shades? I'm about to pull the trigger and I don't want to make a $400 mistake.

I see in the compatibility list that the Zigbee and Matter implementations are supported. Not the ZWave+? I have good mesh for both, so I think I prefer Zigbee and it is $20 cheaper.

I see that the Remote Controller is not required, yet I see in comments here that you have to first pair with the remote. It's only $16 more, so I am inclined to get it anyway, but just curious if it is actually needed to pair with Hubitat.

And just to confirm .. I don't need the SmartWings Smart Link at all, right?

drivers are included in hub 2.4.2, been using their zwave shades for years, they work great and connect directly to hubitat w/o issue. getting a remote is highly recommended for ‘manual control’ and programming.

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I have 18 Smartwings Zigbee and 2 Z-wave, most for at least two years. They are both faultless. The only exception is if I try to command more than four shades at once one will occasionally not get the message. Command retry has solved that. I attribute that to the way ZigBee network works (busy) not the shades. At this point I don't believe Matter matters.

Get a remote. Some settings are best handled with it, limits, direction, etc. If for some reason a shade misbehaves it is easy to determine if it is a shade issue or your Hubitat / shade configuration.

Footnote. They work great with pico remotes and the button controller app. Our west facing shades are normally controlled with a couple of picos with five preset levels.

I have all zigbee shades, and just purchased another one to replace an old somfy z-wave shade that just failed mechanically. I chose to use them in conjunction with two Bond hubs that I have in the house.

I use the Bond group option so I can raise and lower all shades at the same time. I have a number of rooms with 5 shades and this looks much nicer than sending out the zigbee commands and having them raise one after another. It is also quicker than sending Zigbee commands - but I don't think that is that important. The Bond hub uses RF which allows this all at once control but it does mean there is no confirmation back to the hub that it worked. So I wrote an app to check the shades after the RF commands are sent out and then follow-up with a zigbee command in the event that something didn't go according to plan. It notifies me when a shade doesn't end up in the right place and I would say I receive these notifications once every couple of months.

In case anyone finds it useful - here is the app:

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Thanks for the info. As I have several ZWave+ switches nearby repeating, and a Zigbee repeater in that same room, I'm covered no matter which protocol I choose. Given this and your experience with both ShadeWings implementations, is there any reason not to simply choose the less expensive option?

Side question: Are these like the Fyrtur shades where the motor mechanism is the same no matter the width of the shade? I'm thinking of getting a single 70" wide shade to cover two windows instead of two 34" shades, and I'm thinking about whether that would be an issue.

I have ZigBee shades that vary from 26" to 68" over a sliding door. The two z-wave are outdoor 74". Size doesn't affect the motor protocol choice. I chose z-wave for the outdoor shades because they are in very close proximity to the hub. ZigBee would likely have worked just as well.

Also, when you measure provide SmartWings with the full width of the space. They will reduce that slightly for fit.

Of course. I should have been clearer that I was asking an unrelated question.

Their guidance for measuring leaves something to be desired, I think. I would prefer to give them precisely the width of the shade fabric itself (understanding the top mechanism will be x inches wider). Instead, they say to measure precisely down to 1/8" precision, and then add some random 3"-6" to that. And then will they add or subtract from that? Isn't clear.

For Outside Mount, the fabric width will be 1"-1.5" narrower than "Valance", so please increased the width/Height by an additional 3"-6" to cover the entire window frame.

Call them. Their support is quick and very helpful. Then you'll know "for certain" what measurements to submit.

Good idea. I actually am in chat with them right now. I have learned that ordering direct from them gets a 3-year warranty, whereas purchase through Amazon is only two (you can pay to extend that). The price is the same for the shade I configured.

Also, that there are three different motors: less than 20 inches. more than 90 inches, and in between.

+1 on their customer service. I was able to order shade longer than max on their site and they handled it really well. I also ordered two shades and flipped the dimensions by mistake. They sent me a code to order replacements at a fraction of new to replace them.

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Yes, I was impressed with their chat answering my many questions, so I placed my order today directly with them.

Maybe it is just the way my brain works, but I did find their advice on measuring confusing. I think it is a lot easier just to say determine the width of the shade fabric you need and then add 1.25 inches to that to determine the valance width. Use the valance width for the order.