somfy Z-Wave to RTS Interface (1811265)

I'm giving this three stars not because it doesn't work, but because the product description lacks one important fact. You might not need this ZRTSI to RTS unit. I have Bali blinds that I purchased last summer. I've been wanting to automate these ever since I got my Wink 2 hub a couple of months ago. Everything I read on the internet and the instructions left by the installer lead my to believe the ZRTSI to RTS unit was essential to automation. I found the cost of this unit prohibitive at first, but finally bit the bullet and ordered it. If I hadn't done something stupid during setup, and if the unit worked, I might not have ever found out. Read on. For whatever reason during the setup (I'm getting older and more easily confused), I hit the program button on the back of one of my RTS controllers and managed to disconnect it from the system. No amount of following the instructions that the installer left could fix the problem. I called Bali's customer support and was very surprised to find out that the newer shades are already Z-Wave enabled. The tech walked me through the entire process to link to my Wink 2 hub. Everything works fine. If you have Bali shades with the small, square RTS controllers YOU DO NOT NEED THIS UNIT! Seems to me the seller could add a line to the product description stating these are for the older Somfy motors. Hopefully this is an over-site and not intentional. By the way, the Bali tech support is second to none! This is the first time I've walked away from a long customer support session with a smile on my face!

This might not be a good idea for warranty purposes, but I was having an issue with range causing my Somfy RTS tilt motors to jog very slightly rather than complete the operation of fully opening or closing the motor. The ZRTSI was within 8' of the motors and operation still failed. I initially suspected the power supply I was using was insufficient as my power supply limits amperage to 1 amp for each channel and I believe my Somfy tilt motors drive 1.6A at 12V. When I swapped power supplies, the problem persisted. I decided then to factory reset the ZRTSI, but the reset kept failing. I disassembled the unit in order to discharge the capacitor, hoping to delete the programming that way. When I plugged the unit back in without its cover on, I realized I failed to reset the unit, but my motors were working perfectly! So I assumed the range issue, as others have mentioned, was the true issue. I then drilled holes directly above antenna one and antenna two's solder (through the cover with cover removed) and fed the antennas through the 3/32" hole. Problem solved. PS: I have a repeater as well, but that did not help.

Works great to control my remote control somfy motorized blinds. I connect my Somfy ZRTSI RTS 16 Channel Z-Wave to RTS with smartThings and am now able to voice control my blinds using the Google Home device. Would be 5 stars if it was not so expensive. However, it does work well.

So far this has been a very expensive paperweight. I purchased this to allow us to control our existing Bali/Somfy motorized blinds via our wink. So far after many many hours, we haven't been able to get this device to connect to our blinds, although the connection to the Wink itself was very easy. I have even had other people who are very good with technology attempt to set this up and they have each given up while screaming multiple obscenities. I have even tried to look up material online but I haven't been able to find anything that addresses the actual setup for this device. All of the videos the site has done are either old or don't appear to cover the actual setup. Considering how much I paid for this I should probably return it, but after spending a small fortune on motorized blinds, this is about the only way if you want to integrate them with a home automation setup. Also I have been trying to contact the company for support, but they have horrible hours if you are on the West Coast and so far their support has basically been worthless.

The ZRTSi that I received enrolled fine in my 2-GIG GC-2e panel but would not control my shades, either full up/down or any setting in between (25%-50%-75%) using the GC-2e control screen. The iPhone app associated with my Zwave panel would control the full up/full down shade function INTERMITTENTLY (I never figured out why...), but again would not control any intermediate setting. Although all of the other devices enrolled in my Z-wave panel are controllable by Alexa, this ZRTSi device was not, even with the appropriate "skill" installed, probably because even at the panel control screen, shade position was not functional. I have since ordered a Tahoma module.

The product seems well manufactured, but reliability is just poor. Many reviews seem to be attributing the unreliability to poor signal strength, but I'm just not sure that's the case. At least on the Z-Wave part the device is always responsive. The problem is that the Z-Wave part and the RTS part get out of sync. Many times I can see in the SmartThings app that the device has acknowledged the Open (On) command and is showing in the On state, but the blinds aren't opening. Conversely, I see that the device has confirmed the Close (Off) command and is in the Off state but the blinds aren't closing. Because the Z-Wave side is reporting an incorrect state, this causes problems with scenes. SmartThings will not send an "On" command to a device that is already reporting itself in an "On" state. So executing the scene again doesn't fix the situation. I have to go into the app, turn the blinds off and turn them back on again to get things back in sync. I have three separate motor controlled blinds that are all within 10 feet of the device. I have tried all three blinds on the same RTS channel and I've tried all three blinds on their own separate RTS channel. The misreported states happen just as frequently whether they are shared or not. I open all three blinds every morning and I close all three blinds every evening. That equates to either 6 commands or 2 commands a day depending on whether or not they're sharing a channel. I see on average at least one misreported state every day, which is entirely unacceptable. And it's worth noting that it's always random which blind doesn't open or close. It could be the one 10' away from the device or the one only 6' away. I even went so far as to drill holes in the case and bring the antenna wires outside of the case (as one of the other reviewers did) to try and improve reliability. It did not help. And again, all blinds are within 10 feet of the device. The only thing I can come up with to possibly make this thing more reliable would be writing a custom SmartThings behavior that sends the same command 3 times in a row. But that's currently beyond my skill level so I don't know if I'll get to that. Right now this device is more of an annoyance than it is a help.

My setup was as follows - 4 Drapes in one room, Smart Things Hub, 2 Somfy Remotes When I first tried to setup the ZRTSI, I followed the directions and added my SmartThings Hub as described here: [...] First I added my SmartThings Hub "Added a base node". SmartThings owners you will be able to "add a thing" Once the base node has been added, you can then "Add a virtual node", I added 5 virtual nodes. 1 for each drape and one for all drapes. Once that was done I went into RTS Programming, and used the remotes and programming button on back to select the curtains that I wanted to learn on the ZRTSI. The problem I had was when I hit the progamming button on my remotes sometimes it would jog Drape 1 & 2, and not just 1. I didn't understand (as the installer later explained) that if it jogs an unwanted Drape at that time, you need to hit the programming button again to make it forget. Then try again and make sure ONLY the drape you want to jog, jogs. At that time you will press the center button on the ZRTSI to learn. The process for me taught me a lot about the whole system, how to reset back to factory defaults on the Somfy Motors, how to program the remotes, how to get the ZRTSI onto the SmartThings hub. If you have questions feel free to comment I'll do what I can to help, once its done it is nice! My system now auto opens and Dusk and Closes 30min after dawn.

This made my SmartThings hub talk to my curtains. Barely. It thinks that they’re lights, and it can’t tell whether they’re currently open (“On”) or closed (“Off”) so trying to toggle them fails sometimes. But there doesn’t seem to be any better solution if you have an RTS-based Somfy system. (Other than “sell it and buy something better”, which you should maybe consider.) Also, it’s an inoffensive shade of gray. And... um... it’s not radioactive? Sorry, I’m just trying to come up with something nice to say about it... (Gluten free!)