Want to install a motorized awning with zwave

I need the forums advice. I’m in the process of getting a variance to build a 17.5’ x 18, deck on the back of my house. I want to install a motorized retractable awning and I’m looking for the most reliable way to integrate with vera. I know nothing about motorized awnings or zwave motor control and would like help specing out the material list I need to buy.

I see sunsetters on tv alot and it looks like they have somfy motors, are they the brand to go with?
Which zwave motor control should I go with? I see that somfy has one.

I’m hoping to get the best in breed solution (with a parts list) for vera and/or best practices and lessons learned from others have done this.

Thanks

Somfy’s Z-wave was announced last year, but I haven’t heard if they’ve started shipping yet. I’ve been waiting for this, too. I have one Sunsetter, and I’m planning to install several more Somfy controlled roll-ups outside.

Maybe @shady could jump in here and give us an update?

The Somfy Z-Wave isn’t shipping quite yet, but it will be soon. I would just make sure that you order your awning with a standard 4-Wire motor and then buy ESI’s external controller from ASIHome.

Any thoughts on brands and models?

Sunsetter
Beauty-Mark Maui
Beauty-Mark Destin
Sunbrella

I also want to add a wind sensor for auto-retraction. will that interfere with the zwave control?

So I’m doing research and I’m finding that the Beautymark awnings are coming in at considerably lower costs (up to half) than other awnings with similar durability ratings (e.g. wind)

These do not have Somfy Motors (they use their own) , They actually have their own RF remotes integrated in, but after communicating with an engineer there, it looks like the ESI Z-Wave motor control will be able to control it.

At half the cost I’m strongly considering it. Has anyone ever dealt with or seen one of these?

I don’t have a lot of experience with Awnings, but they use the same tubular motors as roller shades. If there is an external controller that enables their RF remote, then yes, chances are that they are using a standard motor and the ESI Z-Wave can replace their RF box.

If it is an “embedded RF” motor (such as Somfy RTS or Altus), then the controller is inside and ESI’s box wouldn’t work unless you were able to hack your way past their internal controller. So you pay them even less money, I’d ask them for standard 4-wire motors (no RF), that is what ESI controllers are meant for. I’d also ask them outright what motor they are using, get a name, its probably and Asian knock-off but if you knew the name you could research the reliability a bit better. What kind of warranty do they offer on the awning, fabric and motor, there should be a different figure for each.

We are transparent to our customers as to which components we use, mainly because we try to use the best. A lot of companies re-brand their vendor’s components and I think it just results in a lot of confusion for the customer, but that’s probably their motivation.

[quote=“tt55du, post:5, topic:165614”]So I’m doing research and I’m finding that the Beautymark awnings are coming in at considerably lower costs (up to half) than other awnings with similar durability ratings (e.g. wind)

These do not have Somfy Motors (they use their own) , They actually have their own RF remotes integrated in, but after communicating with an engineer there, it looks like the ESI Z-Wave motor control will be able to control it.

At half the cost I’m strongly considering it. Has anyone ever dealt with or seen one of these? [/quote]Did you ever get round to buying one of these Beauty Mark awnings? I’m about to pull the trigger on one of these too and wondered if you ever managed to find out if they would supply one with a standard 4 wire motor?

It seems the awnings themselves have the option to be retrofitted with a motor if bought with only a manual crank.
@Shady, how standard are these motors? Any idea if I’d be able to find one that would work easily with the ESI interface?

I bit the bullet and ordered one with a sunbrella upgrade. They have a manually switched 4 wire motor option that you have to personally request. You lose the ability to use their remote or add a wind sensor though. I would like to figure out a lua script to retract the awning after polling google wind data, but I have to sit down and learn lua first. The motors are cheap to replace and user replaceable ~$250 vs well over a grand for a somphy

I ordered the esi z-wave motor control and that’s on back order for at least another week. The awning should arrive next week Iand I’ll install that with the manual switch until the esi module arrives. Will keep you posted.

Thanks, So you went with a whole Sunbrella awning or you went with a Beauty Mark one and upgraded the motor to a Sunbrella one?

Bought the Beautymark and upgraded the fabric to sunbrella. The overall value was too much to pass up. Hope it does not bite me in the end

Last year I built a TV lift that with one push of a button would lift a TV up, power the TV, and boot my PC into XBMC.

The entire sequence was started with a push of one button on my leviton controller.

I used a 12V DC Linear actuator, a Double-Pole Double Throw Relay,120V to 12VDC XMFR and a Zwave 120Volt/15Amp rated Relay switch.

I wired the relays and power in such a manor that when there was 12VDC (+) to the ZWAVE device the motor would lift the TV. When 12VDC (-) was applied to the actuator, the TV would Lower.

I built the entire cabinet and everything. It worked a treat!

Private message me if you’d like a schematic for ideas.

I imagine that you could you use the same principles that I used to retract the awning.

@ markhc. I was thinking that if the ESI controller wasnt available I would try and fab something Macgyver style from an appliance module or two. Will ask you for some more details if I need to go this way.

[quote=“tt55du, post:10, topic:165614”]Bought the Beautymark and upgraded the fabric to sunbrella. The overall value was too much to pass up. Hope it does not bite me in the end[/quote]Did you order it direct from their website / sales number or somebody else? Also whats the advantage of the sunbrella fabric?

I’m a bit late to reply, but any 4-wire AC motor will work with the Z-Wave controllers available from ESI or Lagotek (aka RS Scene Automation). They are just a set of relays inside, but with load monitoring so they are able to run a calibration sequence and then you be able to “dim” the awning to a certain percentage of open (based on run time). This is worth the expense, much better than a MacGruber solution. You should find out from the awning mfgr, what size (in Nm = Newton Meters) the motor would or should be.

http://www.lagotek.com/blinds.html toward bottom of page and/or ASIHome.com for the ESI stuff

Somfy motors should not cost $1000 and any 50mm (called LT-50) motor should fit their tube with the proper adapters. Somfy makes adapters (crown and drive, crown near motor head and drive at end of motor down in the tube) for many types of tube. These parts could be MacGrubered via a machine shop as all you are doing making a specialized “donut” (well two donuts) that adapt the motor shape to the tube profile.

Somfy Star Head 510 - even though the description is inaccurate, he says the pic is what you get (shows star)
http://cgi.ebay.com/Somfy-LT50-motor-/140422863176?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20b1dad948#ht_500wt_1154

I am thinking a cool wind sensor idea could be to attach a vibration switch (I’m thinking old pinball game TILT switch that has a vertical weight on a spring surrounded by contact metal, but I am sure they have better tech now, don’t use mercury it is bad and the awning tilts and it wouldn’t work right…has to be for rather heavy vibration) to a Z-Wave window sensor w/ leads. When the wind picks up enough to shake the awning Vera could retract it based on a simple scene. That is basically all the one do that you’d buy from the mfgr does, but they use Somfy RTS or other radio. Attach this battery sensor to the leading edge of the awning somewhere, thats where the’'d put theirs.

Nice ideas Shady, thanks!

Going to bite the bullet I think…Only downside is I really should paint my outside walls first to save painting around it :frowning:

@tt55du Did you get your awning yet? Mine was delivered a few days ago and I was wondering if you’d managed to work out the specs/brand of the motor option you went for?

It may be a while before I fit the awning anyway as I have a crazily strict homeowners association and I’ve had to apply for approval for it.

I may just risk installing it anyway pending getting the approval (cant see that they will reject it)

I did receive it and it is mounted and working just fine with the ESI controller.

Observations So Far.

  1. Awning is of pretty good quality, I opted for the sunbrella upgrade and am very happy with the fabric
  2. Motor is sufficient, but not great. If you open and close it too many times (over 3) as I did during calibration, it will over heat and you have to wait for it to cool down
  3. Still Trying to figure the Vera Interface. The “Open” and “Close” buttons seem to work fine, all the other buttons (Up, Down, Stop) don’t appear to have any function. The only way to open the awning partially is to use the slider or set a scene to stop at certain percentage
  4. Mobile Web Interface is even worse, just Off and On for Open and Close, no way to stop it half-way unless I use a scene
  5. I’m running 979 UI2, not sure if the newer versions are better, but I’ve been burned before so I’m gonna wait for UI4 + 2 months before I upgrade.
  6. Next step is to install a 4 button scene controller to control the awning by the patio door. I was going to use Shady’s advice to install a simple z-wave switch, but the 4 button controller will give me more flexibility since I want to install a motorized solar shade in the future (any suggested vendors?) I also got a free one from a friend via leviton :slight_smile:
  7. I really want to figure out a wind sensor. Two routes here, rig a physical wind sensor to somehow send a signal to a z-wave receiver. Lua script to poll and google weather at defined intervals and pull the awning in at a threshhold. Both have it’s pros/cons, still researching options.

Did you manage to get a peak at the motor then?

No I did not, it’s a tubular motor with mechanical limit adjustments and has 4 wires coming out. Hot (Forward), Hot (Reverse), Ground, Nuetral.

It is User Replaceable though. If you go online to awntech and download the user manual. They have instructions on how to replace it.

Yes they do but only the radio based one. I need to find out what they use and also what sort of drive mechanism it has.