Soma Tilt appears to act on his own

Hi there,

I ave a very strange problem. I use the Soma Tilt to open and close the shades (Luxaflex). Close it in the evening, or when I am going to watch TV and open it in de morning.

Now every now and then the shades are closed 1 or 2 or sometimes 15 minutes after they have been opened in the morning (always 6.30). It is never 30 minutes or so later, or 5 minutes before…

There is no command in any flow directly to trigger this, so I think it is either another device which controls this, or it is … yeah, what can it be? I’m puzzled. In Homey it appears as an action by SOMA SMART SHADE… I have Homey add a timeline row every time it activates a move on the Shades thru a flow, but this extra action is not presented there…

Anyone knows how Soma tilt is responding to commands? Is it by frequency, like klik-aan-klik-uit?

I have looked at actions around the times the shades are wrongfully openend, but could not find any other actions at that time.

Hope anyone had experienced the same and has a solution :slight_smile:

Thanks upfront, Michel

The Soma Tilt motors use BLE to communicate.
Which Soma app are you using (direct control or via the Soma hub)?

Hi Marcel, I’ve added a log card to every flow action and, if present, every ELSE action. This way I can look up the time of the event in the log, and when it happens to be turned on or off by a (forgotten) flow, it ‘reveals itself’ that way :wink:

Hi. The app on my phone is direct, so not via a Soma hub. BLE…new to me…

Wow… Lotta work… But it will come in handy once finished… Thx for the tip!

BLE is Bluetooth Low Energy. Homey has BLE built in so there’s an app that communicates directly using that.
The Homey app I make talks over the network to the Soma hub and the hub communicates with the motor. I asked so I know how I could help.

@Adrian_Rockall Appreciate your response! Thx!

I only have 1 SOMA device (at this moment), so I thought that there was no need for a hub right now.

I presume there are no automations setup via the Soma phone app, such as open at dawn or when the light level is greater than x amount?

No. Had the same thought. I already checked that, even deleted and re-installed the app… But then again, it should happen every day and not irregular…

This morning all went well…

The automations you setup via the phone app are stored and executed in the motor, so reinstalling the app won’t remove them.
But as you say, it should be repeatable.

I have an automation setup for my of my blinds to open when it gets above a certain light level. That one runs at different time because it depends on the amount of light, but it is sort of predictable.

Have you tried to disable the Homey Soma app for a few days to see if the random operations stop?

Hi @Adrian_Rockall neat feature, to place the slides according to the light :slight_smile:

Good to know that the setup is stored in the motor. Ii thought I also removed the device, but when I re-installed the app, the device was already known. I needed to calibrate again, so I assumed previous settings were initialized.

But… I did set a wake-up right after I installed the device. I deleted it, but maybe this process was not done well.

Your last suggestion… did not test that yet. Thanks for that tip also.

So, today again, they were closed. And I noticed, yesterday they were also closed. Looked with my nose I guess :wink:

So since I know that actions are stored in the device itself, I am goin g to reset it to factury default and start all over again… Fingers crossed!

Update: I changed the way I control Soma via Homey. I defined a virtual device in order to have Google open and close it via speech. This didn’t work out the way I wanted.

I adjusted my flows and noticed that Soma is not responding well to commands. I could follow each step in the flow by sending a note to the timeline. Before and after the Soma action, I received the notes, but the Blinds were not changed. So i think the device is not working properly :frowning:

I close this topic now, at least for me. Thx to @Adrian_Rockall for your support! Appreciate it.

Note that Homey’s BLE is not great, so the issue could be the communication between them. That’s why I developed the hub app, as my Homey couldn’t reliably reach the blinds.
You could try moving Homey closer to the blind to see if that improves the problem.

Hi @Adrian_Rockall thx for the tip. Moving Homey… mmmm ok, get your point, however, when it works, it might solve the connection problem, but it will not be a permanent solution.

Any idea if the new Homey will have a stronger version available on board? I have pre-ordered it, with extra bridge. This might do the trick… Fingers crossed.

Thx again!

I understand it might not be permanent, which is why I used a Raspberry Pie as a Soma hub.

No ide yet about the new version as I’m still waiting for mine as well. But if you are also getting the Homey bridge then it should work as a satellite for BLE, so provided you can locate that closer to the blind and the issue is due to signal strength, it should help.

I think that wil indeed be the solution!