Here is version 1.3 of my Platinum Bridge App to control Hunter Douglas motorized shades. It will soon be available in the Mios App store but I would like people to try it out. It works on both UI5 and UI7. You need a Platinum Bridge connected to the same LAN as Vera. Use Hunter Douglas’ own Platinum App running on Android or IOS to set up and sync your shades. Install this App on Vera. It will automatically locate your bridge and import all of the shades as Vera shades. There is no further configuration needed.
Version 1.3 addresses an important reliability issue which happens in rare cases when the bridge reboots unexpectedly
Version 1.2 addresses all of the issues brought up by 1.1 users.
Problems with changing several shades in one scene are now resolved.
It is now possible to add different types of shades into one Vera room. Make sure that the room names as entered into the Platinum App begins with the room name as enter into Vera. For example, if you have a Vera room named “Rumpus Room” then you can name two different “rooms” in the Platinum app “Rumpus room green shades” and “rumpus Room - Lavender blinds”. Note that case and spaces are ignored when matching names.
One incompatibility with previous versions. The “crossover point” for switching between opening/closing the shades and rotating the vanes for Luminette, Silhouette and Nanticket shades has been changed from 10% to 20%. This is to more easily allow you to set the vanes to half open/closed with UI5 which allows only 10% increments. (description updated below.)
Other bug fixes.
Version 1.1 adds several new features.
support for dual feature shades. Shades with rotating vanes will be fully closed at 20%, half dark at 10% and completely dark at 0%
Support for top-down/bottom up shades. Both bottom and middle rails will be at their lowest at 0% and their highest at 100%. The shade will be fully closed at 50%.
Support for intermediate stops as defined from a Hunter Douglas remote control. Pressing the Stop button on the Vera device actually means “intermediate stop.”
Automatic association into the correct room. If you name your Vera rooms as a prefix of your Hunter Douglas rooms (ignoring case and spaces) the shade devices will automatically be added in the correct room.
Whole room actions. If a room has two or more shades, an extra “ shades” device is created which affects all of the shades in that room simultaneously.
Better support for auto-synchronizing Vera with any changes that you make in the Platinum app.
There will be a few more improvements moving forward, but I wanted to give people early access to this version as it is pretty functional as it is right now.
Things still to be done:
Support three-feature shades which can rotate the vanes two different ways.
Shade-specific icons
Import and execute Platinum shade scenes
etc.
To install the app, simply upload the attached files using the Apps->Develop Apps->Luup files in UI5 or UI7.
Then create a new device
Description: Platinum Shade controller
UPnP Device Filename: D_PlatinumShade.xml
UPnP Implementation Filename: I_PlatinumShade.xml
Restart the Luup engine. You will find a generic “Platinum Shade Controller” device which for now does not have much to do. However, you should also see shade devices created for whatever shades you have set up in you Platinum Bridge. These are standard Vera shade devices and should be controllable by all Vera-compatible apps.
Awesome! Thanks Gengen, basics work fantastic.
I have a mix of 19 HD different blinds and they all populated with the set up.
There’s 9 shades in my setup which work on the up/down control but I haven’t managed to control the shade opening or closing state.
I have 5 Top Down / Bottom Up shades which again work well on the up/down control but I’m not yet able to get top down control.
But I really like the start of this app and how simple it sets up!
Happy to do more testing if you want me to.
If you liked version 1.0, I think you will love version 1.1 of the Platinum Shade app. I have updated the initial post of this thread to describe the new features and also include the new download files.
After playing with the plugin for a little while I really think this is the path to go. It did make me go back through the ipad app to rebuild the config of the shades (room names, blind names) to make it all more consistent with the Vera set up.
I’m still toying through a challenge where I have a single room with mixed types of blinds. They don’t seem to make it through the auto population consistently.
But overall I’m really pleased with the way this is allowing a lot better flexibility to set custom scenes that get triggered from other events!
One thing I’ve noticed building scenes with multiple blinds being controlled. It looks like the HD Platinum Bridge takes more time to execute one blind action than the app allows for - resulting in slightly unpredictable behavior as to which blind actually will open or close. Most cases of building a 3 or 4 blind scene combined with lights, all lights will go on or off but only one of the blinds will action.
Controlling each blind or even your room blind directly will give the expected result - just not when its included in a scene with multiple blinds.
Have you had similar results? Anything I would need to tweak in my set up or how I create the scenes?
@Gengen…Thank you very much for this Plugin. I seem to have a issue where some simple automation scenes change from day to day. I have three shades in my Family Room. This morning when two of them did not go up I checked the Scene and mysteriously two of them were no longer highlighted as devices to be triggered. Anyone else having similar problems ? If so any fixes?
I have the same issue. As per my earlier post I also think the multiple blinds in a scene overflow the Platinum bridge which result in only one of the blinds actually triggering. I added a delayed action for each blind for 2 sec between each blind (in the scene builder) and that seems to have improved the process, but some blinds indeed still remove themselves form scenes occasionally.
Last night I had to delete the plugin and revert back to the IPAD app. My wife is very patient with my Vera meddling with everything but does like her blinds to react properly. I’m guessing it is the Hunter Douglas Platinum Bridge that is the issue but just don’t have enough knowledge to know how to make things even 95% effective.
As promised, I have uploaded version 1.2 of the Platinum Bridge app and updated the first post on this thread. This should address all of the issues brought up so far.
Thank you. I had to promise my wife I wouldn’t mess with the shades until we come back from vacation. So in two weeks I will download it and set everything up.
[quote=“gengen, post:13, topic:187439”]As promised, I have uploaded version 1.2 of the Platinum Bridge app and updated the first post on this thread. This should address all of the issues brought up so far.
Gengen[/quote]
hi, i have been following this thread. i believe your plugin works with platinum app bridge. i have read PowerView Motorization app in HD website. will your plugin work with PowerView too. i am seriously planning to buy motorized blinds/shades.
Good question! The PowerView system looks to be brand new and most likely replaces the old Platinum system. The big change here is two-way communication between the shades and the hub (which looks remarkably like the old Platinum Bridge).
I sent an inquiry to Hunter Douglas regarding the PowerView protocol. My guess is that it is an evolutionary step over the old Platinum protocol. My plug-in may need to be modified somewhat to support PowerView.
So one thing I noticed about the new stuff is that you no longer have to be on the same subnet as the hub/bridge/whatever to use their app. Which suggests they’re having the local control device phone home to some server regularly, at a minimum. Hopefully, they won’t make that the only route control traffic can take.
I took a look at the PowerView app, and it looks to be a general improvement over the Platinum system
Two way communication between shades and controller
Scenes and rooms with multiple shade types
Astronomical clock option in schedules which can depend on sunrise and sunset as well as fixed times
Generally slicker UI. (assign colors, icons to shades, scenes, etc.)
The PowerView protocol is incompatible with the Platinum protocol but my guess is that it is not that different. I would be interested if anyone on this forum has has any direct experience with PoweView,
Hi.
Over the last weeks I am seeing my scenes randomly lose some blinds from the group I have set up to close or open. Is this something anyone else is seeing? I can control the blinds through the device setting so it’s not a matter of that specific device being unavailable or removed.
I’m using the latest version (1.2) of the great plug on UI 7 with the latest firmware.
On the topic of the new PowerView - does anyone already have a confirmation that it requires the blinds to be updated to work? Or will this only require the platinum gateway to be changed for the new hub?
This is very strange behavior indeed. I would suggest editing L_PlatinumShade.lua and un-commenting the luup.log line in the log function near the beginning.