Currently I do not own homey devices so I can’t check by myself the status of the support of heltun touch panel switches. Currently I’m using another software based hub (want to get rid of it because it’s pretty expensive to run (you need to pay yearly subscription plus it runs only on MacOS). I tried to migrate to hubitat from it but at the end migration failed. Hubitat states that they support Heltun devices but in reality they have only basic support:
I added two HELTUN switches to Hubitat. One model with 4 buttons and one with one single button.
There is a possibility to decouple the relay and a button so you can control the LED status and relay from the hub. In another software, you can do it right from the GUI or by sending a special Z-Wave command (a list of commands is available in HELTUN manual). And this is something I already configured and wanted to use with Hubitat.
So after I added my 4 button switch Hubitat created 4 subdevices. I assume that those are relays. If I click on them - my switch changes the colour of LED and opens/closes the relay. But I have no idea how to control LEDs from Hubitat. It did not create them as devices.
This issue was not addressed by Hubitat since March 23. Actually they do not have any support other than their community forum. So I’m looking for an alternative. I found homey pro and that’s why I’m here. I would like to know if homey supports those advanced features of Heltun devices.
And another question. I have 12 motorised window shutters connected to heltun touch panel switches. Virtual relays are configured on them. That mean that if UP button is pressed and you press DOWN button - the UP button disengages and vice versa. So you can’t press UP and DOWN simultaneously. It’s kinda cool, but you can’t control the exact position of the window shade. Is it possible to emulate a window shutter device on homey so I can say “open the window by 35%” and the shade will reach that point with out going to fully open or fully close state first?
Hello
If you don’t have a Homey, and your main swiches you have or heltun’s I should go for a intergation of HA Home assistit with a z-wave dongle. Heltun is proven to connect to HA.
I forgot to mention that i used HA for about 2.5 years and I hate its instability. 3times a year I had to fix broken integrations because with an update some features were discontinued, the syntax of the config files is different now and you have to rewrite most of your automations. I don’t want to be there again I have around 300 smart devices at home so you can imagine how painful is that thing for me.
It’s possible for anyone to search the app store, it’s not ‘members only’;
Search engines also show you the way to the app store:
(this is meant as helpful information, not to point fingers and such )
You can send custom z-wave commands to a node with Homey:
IF the device supports setting positions per the Heltun app. When unsure, mail to Heltun support, support links are available at the app page at homey.app.
When it’s there’s no problem using positions, it should be possible by using a so called advanced virtual device.
A sidenote about HA, I also run HA next to Homey, and here it functions mainly as device support ‘interface’ atm. With help of the Home Assistant Community app those devices can be added to Homey, and use them as if it were native Homey devices.
While you mention having 300 (Three hundred…) devices, maybe it’s smart to let HA do some of the work as well. Homey’s z-wave and zigbee implementations are not top-notch to be honest, BUT it depends of course on the devices, interference and the PEBCAK
I was there already. That was my starting point. I also tested the homey smartphone app. Loooks pretty good to me. And I’m very impressed with advanced flows. However it’s not 100% clear what level of support homey provides for heltun devices. That’s why I started this topic. It’s important for me because most of my switches at home are Heltun made.
I’t probably a good idea to ask Heltun support about this. However, with Hubitat they did not help a lot. They state that Hubitat is supported (but as I mentioned the support is not full).
I’m a little bit scared now. Could you please provide some details about that? Most of my devices are Z-Wave and I have some zigbee stuff as well. The thing is that a single 5 button Heltun switch consist of 5 relays, 5 LED buttons, 1 temperature sensor, 1 humidity sensor and 1 illuminance sensor and a scene controller. In total you have one physical device and 14 logical devices.
Heltun switches do not support positioning. It’s just a relay which can be opened or closed. You need to measure somehow how many seconds the UP or DOWN relay was on to calculate the position. It always takes the same amount of seconds to go fully closed to fully open and vice versa. Can I do that with advanced virtual devices?
I finally got my homey pro. I need to say that level of support of Heltun devices is absolutely great! Buttons and relays are created as a separate devices. All advanced settings are in place. There is no need to run custom z-wave commands, everything is doable from the GUI. The only issue is that built-in HomeKit experiment does not support heltun devices at all. And the worst thing is that homey is not providing support for this “experiment”. The good thing is that there is a 3rd party HomeKit implementation available for homey and it’s called HomeKitty. WIth HomeKitty relays and buttons are visible. But temperature, humidity and illuminance sensors are not. However I can live with that.
I have around 300 smart devices at home so you can imagine how painful is that thing for me.
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