Has anybody successfully integrated a Bond Pro into Automate Shades to replace the Automate Pulse 2 Controllers? Its looks like a RF system so hopefully somebody has done this already.
I’d guess these are just branded Rollease motors based on some of their integration documents (this is from the Homeseer one):
The Automate v2 plug-in allows you to control Rollease Acmeda shades connected to a v2 hub (IP).
I think you are correct. If you start from the RolleaseACMeda site, when you pick the “Motorized Roller Shade” section, you are directed to Automateshades.com.
@ConnectedHomeTech I may be able to answer your question in a few months, if you haven’t already figured it out. I’m currently looking at both Automate and Leviosa, but I have less confidence about the Leviosa compatibility with Bond since I can’t find an official statement one way or another, and I can get the Automate shades for +/- ~5% of the Leviosas, but they include with “professional” installation.
I’m assuming that with Bond I do not need the proprietary hubs from either Automate of Leviosa.
Hi @merck i tried using the Bond hub to control my Rollease Acmeda curtains and it worked great. One piece of feedback, in Home Assistant the Automate Pulse Hub v2 integration greys out one of the direction buttons when it’s not required (see screenshot). The Bond integration does not and keeps both buttons active. Is this something that can be changed in future?
I’m a bit out over the tips of my skiis here, but if I understand correctly, you are saying:
- the Pulse HK integration greys out the “Open” button when the shade is in the open state
- same for Close
- the Bond Bridge Pro’s built-in HK integration does not grey out the buttons
I make some assumptions:
- when a button is greyed, it cannot be tapped
- you are using the built-in HK integration, not Aaron’s (GitHub - aarons22/homebridge-bond: Homebridge plugin for Bond)
If that’s all correct, I would think that actually we are doing “the right thing”, because unlike Pulse which is supposed to have 2-way communication with the shade motors, Bond Bridge Pro (at time of writing) has only 1-way communication. So, if the shade does not receive a signal or if the factory remote is used, users still need a way to command the shade into the Open or Closed state.
Thanks @merck for the detailed explanation. My answers are yes to all of your questions, the exception being I don’t have the Pro hub.
Is there scope for the communication to be 2 way in the future? I find the Bond to be a lot more reliable than the Pulse2 hubs. I do like the 2 way communication though it makes the buttons more instinctive.
The two integrations I’m using in HA are as follows.
Maybe. But there are also some technical downsides.
Suffice it to say that these protocols are not standardized in the way of Zigbee or WiFi. Every motor has it’s own way of communicating. We manage the one-way by basically replicating the signals that the remote controls send. Sometimes this means understanding rolling code and checksum schemes, or there may even be some scrambling. More and more we get support from manufacturers in implementing this. But at the end of the day, we just need to learn to generate a small universe of control signals for that technology. Two-way is far more complicated to implement well, though we hear you loud and clear that 2-way is important.
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Thanks @merck, as always you’re extremely helpful.
Hey @merck! I just wanted to second this request. Obviously it’s easier said than done, but the Bond Pro can cover my whole house whereas the horrid Pulse 2 hub x 3 + 2 extenders still can’t hit them all (what a garbage piece of hardware).
For me, the HA integration reporting battery life would be the pièce de résistance, since I can probably live without the Bond knowing what happened to the shade if the remote were pressed (easily solvable by, well, not using the remote).
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I have just set mine up. From the Devices select Shades and then you need to select the Rollease Acmeda. Make sure you have your remote available as you need to follow the prompts to pair each device that is managed by your remote. It’s a fairly simple process
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For anyone else considering this, I can confirm the experiences above. After years of Pulse 1 and then Pulse 2 hubs not reliably seeing my more distant blinds, I finally bit the bullet and bought the BB Pro – painfully expensive here in the UK: roughly the equivalent of USD 570 when delivered from a local supplier – but based on my brief experiments since this morning it can see and control all of my 14 Rollease blinds without any problems, and, crucially, was found immediately by Home Assistant.
Before I set up too much, I deleted my Pulse 2 integration and its associated entities, named all the blinds and rooms carefully in the Bond app to match what HA was expecting, and reloaded the Bond integration. The entities got names which matched the old ones, and my automations all work!
Yes, it would be very nice to have two-way communication. I’m actually less interested in reading the current blind position than in having the state of the battery displayed in Home Assistant!
For @merck and others, this page was actually the key selling point for me! 
A company goes way up in my estimation when they provide something like that.
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