A couple of years ago, I added sunscreens to the roof of my garden room. After some research, I found that Somfy sunscreens were my best option.
At that time, the only option I had was to use Somfy’s sunscreens that supported the older RTS protocol, since the newer IO protocol was not open source and I probably wouldn’t be able to open or close the screens with anything other than the Somfy remote.
I already owned an RFXcom RFXtrx433E, but soon discovered that I needed the XL version to control the Somfy RTS protocol.
To get everything working, I first had to follow these steps:
- Connect the RFXcom RFXtrx433E to my Windows PC and install the correct drivers.
- If available, it’s wise to update the firmware — firmware files can be found here.
- Download RFXmngr, extract it, and run the program.
- Set the sunscreens to program mode by pressing the small recessed program button on the back of the remote. The sunscreens should respond with a quick down-and-up movement.
- See Image 1 below for the IDs to enter. After entering them, send the program command — the sunscreens should again respond with a quick down-and-up movement.
- Install the RFXCOM RFXtrx integration from this link.
- On the RFXCOM RFXtrx integration page in Home Assistant, click the cog icon to open the popup for adding a new event code.
- If you entered the IDs and codes from Image 1 below, the code should be 071a000000000101. If you used other settings, the code is composed of the following parts: 071a0000[id][unit_code].
For now i didn't automate the sunscreen because there is much to think about (Rain, Wind speed, temperature) but i did add a automation to roll up the sunscreen when it starts raining:
alias: When rain starts
description: ''
triggers:
- trigger: moisture.detected
target:
entity_id: binary_sensor.sun_rain_meter_rain
options:
behavior: each
for: '00:00:00'
conditions: []
actions:
- action: cover.open_cover
metadata: {}
target:
entity_id: [Sunscreen ID]
data: {}
mode: single