Controlling Hunter Douglas shades

[ChocoboLee]

Has anyone managed to automate Hunter Douglas shades? I recently installed a bunch of Hunter Douglas silhouette shades and want to automate them. Hunter Douglas has a RF adapter that might work. Google "Hunter Douglas RF adapter" and click on the first result. (I can't post links yet)

But it doesn't seem to support silhouette shades. The problem with silhouette shades is that it's not just up and down, when it's all the way closed, hitting the down button will tilt the vanes open. So the RF adapter may not work, since all it does is open and close the shade.

I am not too familiar with home automation as I have not even installed a system yet. Looking into using an Elk M1 Gold for security and home automation. But is there such thing as an RF transmitter that I can program to learn the RF frequencies so that it can control my shades?

 

[electron]

Supposedly these can be interfaced with an automation system, but I don't have any personal experience with this. This link shows off some hardware which allows you to interface the shades:

http://www.automatedshadeinc.com/content.asp?sectionID=35622&subsectionID=358026&subsubsectionID=524263#universal

If it is as simple as a serial bridge, and the M1 doesn't support it natively, then you should be able to manually specify the serial commands using the M1's custom ASCII string feature. Hopefully someone with more experience can confirm this.

 

[ChocoboLee]

Unfortunately, my shades are not hardwired. So I can only control them with IR or RF.

 

[Deane Johnson]

Has anyone managed to automate Hunter Douglas shades? I recently installed a bunch of Hunter Douglas silhouette shades and want to automate them. Hunter Douglas has a RF adapter that might work. Google "Hunter Douglas RF adapter" and click on the first result. (I can't post links yet)

But it doesn't seem to support silhouette shades. The problem with silhouette shades is that it's not just up and down, when it's all the way closed, hitting the down button will tilt the vanes open. So the RF adapter may not work, since all it does is open and close the shade.

I am not too familiar with home automation as I have not even installed a system yet. Looking into using an Elk M1 Gold for security and home automation. But is there such thing as an RF transmitter that I can program to learn the RF frequencies so that it can control my shades?

The dealer you acquired the shades from should be able to secure the informatin for you, along with the components you need to control them. The dealer likely doesn't know first hand, but should be able to get the information from their fabricator.

The primary problem is that Hunter control systems don't operate all functions of all shades, so it's hard to figure out which to use, if any at all will work.

 

[az1324]

The problem with silhouette shades is that it's not just up and down, when it's all the way closed, hitting the down button will tilt the vanes open. So the RF adapter may not work, since all it does is open and close the shade.

I think this is probably handled internally by the motor so it wouldn't matter what remote you are using.

You may want to check this out: http://www.ryanwright.com/ht/powerrise/

 

[ChocoboLee]

I think this is probably handled internally by the motor so it wouldn't matter what remote you are using.

You may want to check this out: http://www.ryanwrigh...m/ht/powerrise/

From the description of their RF adapter, the shade opens when it senses power to the adapter and closes when it no longer senses power. So it only has 2 modes: shade open and shade closed. So I won't be able to control the vanes opening with their RF adapter, if it works at all.

Thanks for the link. So there's no generic RF transmitters I can use?

 

[az1324]

From the description of their RF adapter, the shade opens when it senses power to the adapter and closes when it no longer senses power. So it only has 2 modes: shade open and shade closed. So I won't be able to control the vanes opening with their RF adapter, if it works at all.

Thanks for the link. So there's no generic RF transmitters I can use?

Ah I see your point. You won't be able to send another close command when it's closed with the plug-in adapter. I think your best options are going to be hacking the remote like they did or using an IR blaster if possible.

 

[Deane Johnson]

Ah I see your point. You won't be able to send another close command when it's closed with the plug-in adapter. I think your best options are going to be hacking the remote like they did or using an IR blaster if possible.

There may be some issues using an IR blaster that need to be addressed, I'm not sure.

I believe that the Hunter remote sends an RF wake-up signal before it sends the IR code. Seems I heard about that a while back. I'm not saying that's for sure, but it needs investigation before going to a lot of expense and trouble.

 

[Steve]

I think if at all possible you need to get at least a control wire there. Do you have a wire run for security for the window? Any extra pairs? With a pair of wires you can use the connection interface to open/close/tilt and it works great. I think your only option without wiring is to hack the remote and connect it to relays.

 

[ChocoboLee]

I don't have wires for windows, so remote controlling them is my only option. I ordered one of the Hunter Douglas RF adapters. I will see if that works. If not, I might have to hack up a remote to do it.

 

[scottp73]

I am a hunter douglas dealer and have wanted them to come out with a product like the Somfy serial bridge for some time now. At this point there really is no easy way to control the platinum 2.0 systems with automation. What I did and not saying it is perfect! I took the wall remote and took it apart an connected leads to the remote and used relays to make the connections. Using Output/Relays to act like I was hitting buttons. and did some programming to make it respond the way I wanted!

The Problem that you will run into will be with the Sil. is that Down. and the Down again to open, is Based off of time for how long it takes for the shade to go down, and as the batteries drain the time changes.

hope that helps

 

[Steve]

Scott: I agree with it being a bit of a PITA with the relays but why did you have to hack a wall remote when you could do the same thing with the Connection Interface?

 

[ChocoboLee]

I just got the rf adapter and it works well with a wall switch. If I turn the switch on, the shades go up. If I turn it off, the shades go down. It basically just transmits an up/down rf signal when the power goes from off->on/on->off repectively. So with silhouette shades, it sort of works if you just want to control the up and down with it.

Unfortunately, the rf adapter does not work with the insteon appliancelinc. For some reason the rf adapter always detects power even if I switch the appliancelinc off. I think something about how insteon communicates over power must confuse the rf adapter to think that there's always power. I ordered a lamplinc to try that out, but I'm afraid that will not work either.

 

[Deane Johnson]

I use an Hunter Douglas RF adapter with a Z-Wave appliance module with complete success. I realize a Z-Wave module is different than an Insteon module, but wanted to let you know that it can work if there is complete removal of the AC in the off position.

 

[Ranger Digital]

Has anyone made progress on this effort? Looking to install 11 window shades in 6 different rooms. Hardwire is not an option and I want to tie this into an HAI and URC Total Control set up. Doesnt appear to be a easy solution, yet.