Somfy Blinds + RS485 extension or Tahoma?

[Nick Everard]

Hi All, 

I am looking to purchase some somfy cellular blinds for our house as standard they are coming with RTS. 

I have read the below article using an RS485 extension and the Somfy RS485 RTS transmitter which seems a sound solution, does anyone have good or bad experience?

Has anyone got experience with the Tahoma Box and the FHEM plugin on the Loxberry?

I am always unsure on Loxberry solutions for main stream controls for lighting/heating/shading etc.

Thanks in advance for any help / guidance. 

[Ewan Tait]

I can't speak for Somfy's Tahoma box, but I'm using FHEM, via MQTT, to interface my Loxone system and my Velux KLF200 box. It's been up and running for a couple of months now and works like a charm. I've got six blinds (two banks of three when controlled from the switch, but each can be addressed individually from the Loxone app).

The Velux box is completely local. I did consider the Tahoma box, as it can control Velux blinds and I was thinking it would give some flexibility in choosing other blinds in the house, but my understanding is that it requires access to Somfy's servers. My preference is to avoid 3rd party servers where I can (the only exception being for voice control with Apple Siri).

Cheers,

Ewan

[Rydens]

Hi, an alternative for Somfy blinds etc is to use the  RFXtrx433XL this plugs into a USB of any local machine and can be set to control any single or groups of blinds. All locally. 

I use it with Home Automation running on a raspberry Pi and then link to Loxone.

Works very well and has been reliable for several years

let me know if you want more info

Cheers David

NB you can also interface to many other devices  remotes with this but have not really used that feature.