Rollease Acmeda Automate Pulse 2 Shade control

[jfh]

For those using Rollease Acmeda motors in their shades, Version 2 of hub/controller and related ap is coming soon.

https://www.rolleaseacmeda.com/au/products/product-detail/automate-pulse-2

‘Was talking to support yesterday on a non-related issue yesterday and got some information about the new Automate hub that is ready to be released pending final approval from Apple so the production firmware can be flashed.  No release date has been announced but it’s anticipated to be in August, maybe September.

There will be native Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant and Alexa support for direct voice control.  (This is generally available today but the v2 platform will include more natural voice control - Alexa, raise the Kitchen Shades rather than Alexa, turn off the Kitchen Shades, though Amazon is a bit behind schedule with their work to allow Alexa devices access to a true shade device proxy) and native sunrise/sunset support.  The ap will change shade coverage percentages to match the industry (so Closed is now 0% rather than 100%).  This will make it easier in C4 because you no longer will have to convert the motor level values between what Automate shows and the C4 motor driver uses. V2 will also support native sunrise/sunset support.

i’m more excited about the hardware changes and C4 integration.  The most annoying thing about version 1 of the hub is that it has an RS485 connection which must connect to a C4 controller with a serial DB9 connection. You cannot use a 3.5mm to DB9 connector (like on an EA1 or EA3) to control the hub.  V2 supports Ethernet connection for control and PoE which allows much more freedom for hub placement and will make it trivial for those that need more than one hub to integrate into C4.

It was unclear, but it sounded like v2 will also support alerts for motor online/offline events and improve the ability to recover from failed commands.  More error events (command did not complete, motor online/offline) would be fantastic additions to the official Annex4 drivers.  I do know that the new Annex4 drivers will support the LUA performance improvements in OS3.

V2 will use a different cloud so no direct export from v1/import to v2 will be available but you should be able to use the hand held remotes to copy motor info to the v2 hub. (There are no changes to the motors required for V2).

if you aren’t familiar with the current Annex4 driver:

https://annex4.link/drivers/automate-pulse

 

i have shade control integrated into C4 with more natural speech using Alexa routines and the Epic Systems driver but it will be great to have native Alexa and Siri support available as well.

[blub]

That sounds like a good reason to wait

[jfh]

7 minutes ago, blub said:

That sounds like a good reason to wait

If you aren’t currently using v1 of the Automate Hub,  I would absolutely wait.

if you are, I don’t see a need to upgrade unless you need the PoE/IP connectivity for C4 or want HomeKit or native sunrise/sunset support.

 

But I can’t wait to upgrade!

[blub]

I have quite a number of manual shades which are starting to show signs of wear and broken mechanics.
So I was looking for motorized replacements for about a year now.
Qmotion ZigBee is not available in my country, Hunter Douglas PowerView has an external battery module for which I don't have an space left in most locations and the Somfy MyLink RTS isn'tavailable in my country and has an external battery - so I was pretty disappointed until I found the Rollease motors with the internal battery.

What held me back was the serial connection and time constraints for now, but with the V2 Hub it looks like it's time to ask them if they sell the motors in Germany and if they have a retailer.

[jfh]

I’ve moved all my Rollease shades/motors from the original pulse hub to the new version 2 Pulse hub and have the the new V2 drivers from Annex4 (free) running on OS 3.1

The design of the hub is beautiful and I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it out in the open.  The new drivers provide IP control (by 2.4 wireless or Ethernet) so you no longer have to connect the hub by RS485 serial.  The hub boots very quickly and individual motors can be set up very quickly in the ap without having to re-pair motors by physically pressing buttons on the shade/motor (though that is an option) - you just use the remote to initialize the motor with the ap.  (I did 14 motors in about 20 minutes).  Not being tethered to a serial port on a C4 controller has allowed me to move the hub to a more central location and discontinue use of the Rollease signal repeater.

There is one driver per hub and one driver per motor.  The hub driver will self discover motors which makes set up easy.  Motor names are now exposed making the bindings easy for the dealer.  The current versions of the V2 drivers (0.57 and 0.55) look/function like the v1 ones (the documentation hasn’t been updated though).   Note - if you use the C4 shade group drivers you will need new instances after the V2 motor drivers are installed or the selected group members will not “stick”.  Don’t know if this is a C4 or driver bug, but a simple fix (other than having to redo all the programming)

There are some small glitches on the early hub firmware (I’m reasonably confident the issues are with the hardware and the Pulse 2 ap and not the C4 drivers) that I’m working with Rollease support and development to understand and run down.  The Annex4 drivers still do not support calling defined scenes or fire event(s) on battery state (e.g. low/dead battery) which would be great functions to have and there is one issue I’ve found that could be either a hub hardware or driver issue (or maybe both) that comes into play if moving motors from a near open or near closed state.  I hope these can be identified/addressed quickly.

Some of my tests seem to show improved motor-hub communication over v1 but I’m not sure yet if that’s reality or my imagination though grouped motors seem to operate more smoothly together.

[Greg@C4]

Hey jfh -- 

Do you know where we can purchase the automate pulse 2 hub?  AVOutlet is back ordered until 3/16/2020.  Also do you know if the 20 device spec is fixed or recommended?  We have about 60 shades but I am pretty sure we can group them into a more manageable number.

 

Thanks

[jfh]

1 hour ago, Greg@C4 said:

Hey jfh -- 

Do you know where we can purchase the automate pulse 2 hub?  AVOutlet is back ordered until 3/16/2020.  Also do you know if the 20 device spec is fixed or recommended?  We have about 60 shades but I am pretty sure we can group them into a more manageable number.

 

Thanks

I don’t.  I purchased mine from AVOutlet.  It’s possible it is embargoed until the official release by Rollease.  You could always call Rollease and ask.
 

The device number is lower than the v1 hub but I don’t know if it’s a hard limit.  I only have 14 motors on mine.  You should be able to telnet in and look but I haven’t done that on v2.

The Annex4 v2 drivers have been updated and now support events for device offline and motors not responding as expected.  This has turned out to be quite useful in logging/announcing issues with individual motors and for alerting that the Pulse 2 may be hung up.  There hasn’t been a firmware update in quite some time so I’m hoping that will change when Pulse 2 is officially released.

[blub]

I’ve moved all my Rollease shades/motors from the original pulse hub to the new version 2 Pulse hub and have the the new V2 drivers from Annex4 (free) running on OS 3.1
The design of the hub is beautiful and I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it out in the open.  The new drivers provide IP control (by 2.4 wireless or Ethernet) so you no longer have to connect the hub by RS485 serial.  The hub boots very quickly and individual motors can be set up very quickly in the ap without having to re-pair motors by physically pressing buttons on the shade/motor (though that is an option) - you just use the remote to initialize the motor with the ap.  (I did 14 motors in about 20 minutes).  Not being tethered to a serial port on a C4 controller has allowed me to move the hub to a more central location and discontinue use of the Rollease signal repeater.
There is one driver per hub and one driver per motor.  The hub driver will self discover motors which makes set up easy.  Motor names are now exposed making the bindings easy for the dealer.  The current versions of the V2 drivers (0.57 and 0.55) look/function like the v1 ones (the documentation hasn’t been updated though).   Note - if you use the C4 shade group drivers you will need new instances after the V2 motor drivers are installed or the selected group members will not “stick”.  Don’t know if this is a C4 or driver bug, but a simple fix (other than having to redo all the programming)
There are some small glitches on the early hub firmware (I’m reasonably confident the issues are with the hardware and the Pulse 2 ap and not the C4 drivers) that I’m working with Rollease support and development to understand and run down.  The Annex4 drivers still do not support calling defined scenes or fire event(s) on battery state (e.g. low/dead battery) which would be great functions to have and there is one issue I’ve found that could be either a hub hardware or driver issue (or maybe both) that comes into play if moving motors from a near open or near closed state.  I hope these can be identified/addressed quickly.
Some of my tests seem to show improved motor-hub communication over v1 but I’m not sure yet if that’s reality or my imagination though grouped motors seem to operate more smoothly together.

Sounds solid.
Now I just have to find someone selling the hub and motors in Europe, so far I couldn't find a shop

[julianm]

Just got my own Pulse 2 and this is the only place on the web I’ve found that mentions PoE.

Did anyone manage to get Pulse 2 powered via PoE? I have a Ubiquiti switch with port set to PoE+ but the Pulse 2 doesn’t seem to power up until I plug in USB power.

[enzeder]

I have just has these installed as well - with the pulse automate 2. I can control them fine with the remote, I can also control them using google.

Dealer has bound them all up and the driver is communicating because the feedback is getting back to the navigators correctly. But now we are stuck - they haven't installed this brand before.

Problem is that the the blinds stop moving soon after starting and it seems to be the driver determining it. For example based on the LUA debug when the blinds are shut and I tell C4 to open them it sets it to go to level 95 - ie opens them 5%. Similarly when the blind is open and I want to close them it sets it to go to level 5 - ie closes them only 5%.

Also how does the calibrate function work, at the moment I have widely different calibrate times which are mostly wrong - the 8,000 is the default - and not even sure how they got set.

Blind 1 - 5502 / 8000

Blind 2 - 2711 / 1908

Blind 3 - 2927 / 8000

The blinds are all the same height.

 

[blub]

Wrong driver?

I recall rollease had full close and open in reverse to industry standard and they changed that with pulse v2 - I would double check the driver and talk to the driver developer

[jfh]

6 hours ago, enzeder said:

I have just has these installed as well - with the pulse automate 2. I can control them fine with the remote, I can also control them using google.

Dealer has bound them all up and the driver is communicating because the feedback is getting back to the navigators correctly. But now we are stuck - they haven't installed this brand before.

Problem is that the the blinds stop moving soon after starting and it seems to be the driver determining it. For example based on the LUA debug when the blinds are shut and I tell C4 to open them it sets it to go to level 95 - ie opens them 5%. Similarly when the blind is open and I want to close them it sets it to go to level 5 - ie closes them only 5%.

Also how does the calibrate function work, at the moment I have widely different calibrate times which are mostly wrong - the 8,000 is the default - and not even sure how they got set.

Blind 1 - 5502 / 8000

Blind 2 - 2711 / 1908

Blind 3 - 2927 / 8000

The blinds are all the same height.

 

Something is not right.

 

How are you changing the level?  Using the slider in the GUI or with the SET command?  With the v2 drivers the set value is the reverse of v1.  
 

Ignore the calibrate function in v2. (I thought it had been/was being removed for the v2 drivers.  I will have to look).

 First thing to do has nothing to do with the drivers or C4 — Make sure the blinds each have top/bottom limits set.  Verify with remote.  Then fully open/close them in the Automate ap. If things look normal, go to C4 set the slider to 100, then 0.  This will set/reset position level info in the motor driver (check the position info on the properties page).  
 

There are still some minor issues with the new drivers (I think mostly with groups) - will see if I can note them later.

 

What version of the hub and motor drivers do you have?

On the Automate 2 hub itself, make sure the firmware is at least 0.9.0 - the firmware initially shipped had all sorts of issues.  Make sure the ap itself is updated (i.e. the stop buttons exist/work. 

 

 

[jfh]

On 3/12/2020 at 2:48 PM, julianm said:

Just got my own Pulse 2 and this is the only place on the web I’ve found that mentions PoE.

Did anyone manage to get Pulse 2 powered via PoE? I have a Ubiquiti switch with port set to PoE+ but the Pulse 2 doesn’t seem to power up until I plug in USB power.

Very early on PoE was apparently part of the plan but didn’t make it in v2.  

[Neo1738]

Only know of Powershades as having POE at this time for both data and power.

[julianm]

On 3/21/2020 at 8:44 AM, jfh said:

Very early on PoE was apparently part of the plan but didn’t make it in v2.  

That’s such a shame! PoE is quite convenient. Thanks for responding though.

[SRJ]

Has anyone had trouble when trying to pair the shades via remote or hub? I keep getting a pairing failure. The remote controls the shades with no issue, so I'm not sure what the issue is.

[blub]

Is there any difference between the Annex4 driver for v2 and the one available at the Rollease Homepage?

[jfh]

35 minutes ago, blub said:

Is there any difference between the Annex4 driver for v2 and the one available at the Rollease Homepage?

The drivers on the Rollease automation site are the v2 Annex drivers.  You would have to check the versions against those in the C4 driver database but, looking at the versions on the Rollease site and going from memory, I believe the ones in the C4 database are more recent.

[blub]

Hi

After like 12 months or so I finally got my motorized blinds... .. oh boy what a journey....

So after getting the installed and integrated into Control4 the blinds do work, however I see 2 issues:

1) The calibration does work but the corresponding driver fields aren't getting populated, it stays at the default 8000 - in the debug log I can see the correct values are being received by the driver

2) some blinds show as being "partly disconnected" - the blinds do work via Control4, howeber it looks odd to me:

 

[jfh]

Three things:

1.  Are you using a v1 or V2 hub?  What versions of the hub and motor drivers are you using?  Pretty sure there is a later version of the motor driver then 0.55.

2. Calibration really isn’t used/needed/useful in the newer versions of the drivers so you can pretty much ignore it.  Just make sure you have the upper and lower stops set for each blind (outside of C4, using the blind remote).  If that’s done, calibration is of no value unless you change the motor speed (and probably not even then).

3. Have you verified the bindings for each motor? (Presume yes if they are working through C4)

[blub]

8 hours ago, jfh said:

Three things:

1.  Are you using a v1 or V2 hub?  What versions of the hub and motor drivers are you using?  Pretty sure there is a later version of the motor driver then 0.55.

2. Calibration really isn’t used/needed/useful in the newer versions of the drivers so you can pretty much ignore it.  Just make sure you have the upper and lower stops set for each blind (outside of C4, using the blind remote).  If that’s done, calibration is of no value unless you change the motor speed (and probably not even then).

3. Have you verified the bindings for each motor? (Presume yes if they are working through C4)

Hi, V2 pulse hub.

Ok, so Ill skip the calibration.

When I look at the annex4 page 0.55 is the newest driver for the motors

 

[blub]

8 hours ago, jfh said:

3. Have you verified the bindings for each motor? (Presume yes if they are working through C4)

Dealer says bindings are set, and the motors work. Sometimes the bindings all show up correctly and an hour later it is missing in a couple of motors - strange

[AVP3]

I have the pulse 2 (running firmware 1.1.0) and 7 motorised blinds.   how are you guys seeing or updating the firmware on the individual motors or even the hub?  I'm having constant random drop outs, restarting the hub usually gets them to reconnect for a short time but then they randomly just go out, sometimes for hours on end before they re-appear inside the app.  They're all fully charged so power isn't the issue.  any help appreciated, thanks guys!

[stlcity]

9 hours ago, AVP3 said:

I have the pulse 2 (running firmware 1.1.0) and 7 motorised blinds.   how are you guys seeing or updating the firmware on the individual motors or even the hub?  I'm having constant random drop outs, restarting the hub usually gets them to reconnect for a short time but then they randomly just go out, sometimes for hours on end before they re-appear inside the app.  They're all fully charged so power isn't the issue.  any help appreciated, thanks guys!

I had the same issue when the hub was in the basement in the rack. I had to move it up to the ground floor close to where most shades are. Stopped having random drop outs. Been working great since then. 

[blub]

On 2/26/2021 at 3:43 AM, AVP3 said:

I have the pulse 2 (running firmware 1.1.0) and 7 motorised blinds.   how are you guys seeing or updating the firmware on the individual motors or even the hub?  I'm having constant random drop outs, restarting the hub usually gets them to reconnect for a short time but then they randomly just go out, sometimes for hours on end before they re-appear inside the app.  They're all fully charged so power isn't the issue.  any help appreciated, thanks guys!

I have no clue how to update anything in the Pulse ecosystem as there isn't a GUI entry in the app.

I have a 3 story house which is built of concrete so the reception is a nightmare. I used a repeater for 3 months now but got fed up with drop outs in the upper floor - the hub is stationed in the middle floor and serves the basement very well without dropouts.

I just did get 2nd hub an paired, it had FW 0.9 and the other hub has 1.1 - I took the time and removed the new hub, reset it via the "button" at the backside and re-added/paired it and it come up with FW 1.1 - thats all I can say.

 

The GUI/ecosystem does lag a couple of thing:

1. Overview page of battery status and reception in a "list form" to easily asses the state of the motors - I have 23 motors and it is pain to figure out reception issues or check battery status

2. App needs FW update button - do motors also get updates!?

3. Better control4 driver overview - which one is the newest!? Annex4 shows 0.0.55 for the motor but I have 0.1.62 installed, which I cannot find anywhere on the internet!?

4. Control4 driver doesn't show battery status, so one cannot program notification inside Control4 to charge the battery

5. I would love to "bind" the motor to a contact sensor - i.e if the status of a window is "open" that the motor doesn't start lowering the blind at all - this really is an issue, sometimes windows are open and if u don't look close enough the motor lowers the blind and it get tangled in itself - a real pain to fix