Fibaro FGR221 with Aeonlabs Minimote working

[Guest Sodanum]

All,

while refurbishing our home, I intended to prepare grounds for home automation. Being a technical nerd in some ways, I chose Z-Wave as the underlying technology, because there are quite a few vendors of equipment, partially very well known in electrical infrastructure. And the promise of Z-Wave is that all these devices should cooperate seamingly. Really true!?

Think big, but start small! That was my starting point by "automation" of two window blinds, where I did not have the chance to apply cables into the desired rooms. So the required equipment was two window blind actuators plus two remote controllers. (In the future much more might come. Time will tell.)

Searching for such equipment, I was struck by Fibaro's variety of actuators and identified the FGR221. On the other hand, no small remote controller is available. However I identified Aeonlabs' Minimote to be ideal for me. But would these work together? I did not find a real answer in the Internet. So I had to make a try on my own.

Receiving the hardware, the first shock: where is the battery compartment of the Minimote? None available... Reading the documentation carefully two or three more times, I found out that it makes use of a Lithium cell rechargeable via a Mini-USB port. Cool

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Understanding the concepts of Z-Wave took me a while, and experimenting with two filament bulbs instead of a window blind let my hopes decline that I would end up with a working system. Probably I did not succeed to overcome the (required?) calibration of the FGR221 devices: the lamps were always switched off after approx. 2 seconds. (I knew that they don't have "end switches". And I found quite a few complaints about such beavior in the Internet.) Nevertheless experiments taught me how to include Z-Wave devices and how to setup scenes, i.e. allocating remote buttons to one or the other window blind.

With very damped hopes, I made a first trial with real window blinds. To be sure, I uploaded the newest firmware to the Minimotes (is there something comparable like a firmware upload into the FGR221?), reset the Minimotes, and thoroughly reset both FGR221 as well. And yeah, it worked right away as expected

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A (very) short scene button press closes/opens the blind completely. A "long" button press starts to operate the window blind after about 1 second as long as the button is hold. The following button press reverses the blind's direction. Pressing the Minimote command "All on" ("All off") opens (closes) both included blinds completely.

To fiddle out things more efficiently, I would have liked a better documentation of both the FGR221 as well as the Minimote. Having just a Minimote, what would be my way to set FGR221 parameters, e.g. Parameter 10 for turning on/off the shutter positioning function? How does the end stop detection work precisely, by monitoring the motor current? What is the trigger level to detect the end stop? Is the trigger level hardwired? Just to mention stuff, where I did not find an answer so far.

Nevertheless: I would do it again. And I am prepared and willing to expand home automation to (much?) more. And I will be prepared for surprises, good and bad.

Regards, Sodanum