Zigbee functionality has to be enabled for each motor using the SOMA app.
Zigbee has been tested with Home Assistant using the following adapters:
- Conbee 2
- Conbee 3 (currently there are issues with this adapter - do not use)
- Home Assistant SkyConnect
- Sonoff Zigbee Dongle Plus (ZBDongle-E and ZBDongle-P)
- Nortek HUSBZB-1
- SMLIGHT SLZB-06M
We have also tested with Samsung SmartThings using the SmartThings Hub (IM6001-V3P02).
We have now also tested with Amazon Echo 4th generation smart speakers. According to Amazon (https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/smarthome/zigbee-support.html#echo-plus) this should mean that all the listed devices should also work similarly. Alexa has some weird limitations like not really showing controls in the app UI. Also voice commands like "open" and "close" don't seem to work. What we found works best is "Alexa, set <blind name> to 50". "raise" and "lower" also work but seem to move the motor not all the way up and down. Any feedback on actual use cases with Alexa is very welcome. We tested Alexa also with IKEA motors and they had the same limitations if connected directly over Zigbee. This may be an inherent limitation of Alexa and their Zigbee implementation.
Hubitat has now been tested and it seems that C-7 and older hubs will not be able to support SOMA motors. The reason being they use older versions of Zigbee that pair in an unsecure way that Zigbee R23 (used in SOMA motors) explicitly forbids. Beginning with C-8 Hubitat allows the option to "pair while avoiding Zigbee 3 routers) which forces it to use the standards compliant pairing. This has been tested and confirmed working. Hubitat also has a community provided driver to better support SOMA motors.
At the moment Zigbee should be considered experimental and we would appreciate if you reported any issues you find with that. We have tested basic window cover control and battery level reporting. More features could be added in time and suggestions are welcome.