VELUX ACTIVE with NETATMO

When I am away, I no long have to wonder if the house is getting to hot with the sun or to shut all the windows wondering about the rain... A simple press on the app allows me to control my windows to open or to close and by how much I would like. If it ever starts to rain, my window's rain sensor will quickly close all the windows and the app will notify me of the window opened/closed/locked status. Best of all, there is also a timers which I can set the window(s) to automatically close Within an hour or any time within the hour in 5-minutes increments. Super convenient and it is password secured/protected.

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I write software for a living and if only one created this in my company, they would be looking for work. Let’s start with internals. This app eats power. I have an older iphone but it ate 50% of my battery in an hour. Verified by looking at power consumption in settings. The actual interface for controlling the blinds is good employing the more modern minimalist icons but doesn’t adjust space for more than two skylights and blinds. There is plenty of room. The real problem is the complicated set of menus to configure rooms and uses computer ease like “bind” “equipment”. This isn’t 2010, it’s 2018. Just drag the blind on top of the skylight. Double tap to unbind. Hold a second or so to locate or if modern phone push hard. A tutorial comes up showing a drag and explains verbally and in text what to do. Lastly the interface to pick is sometimes unresponsive. The hardware interface is good, keep you engineers but the rule is NEVER let engineers anywhere close to user interface or user function. It’s clear their implementation percolated into user interface.

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For the price of the skylights you’d think they would hire some designers and engineers instead of offshoring the development and not testing it with actual users. Aside from the super small font, super slow registration process, and clunky interface, here’s what I expected but is missing: Ability to group skylights within a room or in different configurations (all, just top, left side, etc..). Works with Alexa (this is key!!). Set open/close schedule by skylight, group, or room. Works with IFTTT (to get it to work with Alexa and other devices). The ability to turn off notifications every time we open or close (annoying). Good news is that I can open and close with my phone, which is kinda cool I guess. Otherwise, very disappointing.

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This app is consistent with everything about Velux solar skylights except the metal and glass — it’s complete junk. Having it connect and open or close is a crap shoot; it fails half the time. Not once have I managed to have it work via HomeKit. The windows close at random and most of the time I don’t get notified - but occasionally I do. If there’s a problem there’s no explanation, just “unknown error”. And did you know that when the rechargeable battery in the window dies you have to replace THE ENTIRE MOTOR for $350? (if you do it yourself - that’s just the cost of the part). UPDATE: it’s worse than I thought. If you lose your internet connection (and the gateway seems to lose it spontaneously every few months) you cannot control your windows, even if you’re on the same WiFi. The gateway refuses to do anything without Internet.

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I spent a long time trying get this to work. I installed 2 gateways, 2 sensors, hooked it up to the WiFi. In the end I can open and close window from my phone. But that is really not much functionality. I was hoping to have the Active control open and close windows when it was hot and cold. Sadly, this functionality doesn't work well. The main problem is that the windows don't consistently open when it's hot. Oh, once in a while it will "air the room", but they don't stay open base on temperature. Don't get me wrong, I love my VELUX skylights and blinds. I am very happy I installed them. This app is stable and you can use it to open and close windows. But the VELUX Active doesn't work well. In the end I went back to the legacy remotes. On 30 minutes I had it programmed to open in the morning and close at night. This isn't based on temperature, but at least it works.