Somfy is not only the world market leader for drive and control solutions for roller shutters and sun protection, but already connects over five million devices worldwide in a comprehensive Smart Home ecosystem. As a pioneer of automated living, the company’s products are installed in any number of buildings worldwide, and it has stood for an interoperable and secure Smart Home world for many years. Today, Somfy already integrates numerous partner solutions in addition to its own products. This means that around 200 devices can currently be connected to the TaHoma.
For Apple fans, the Smart Home world of Somfy is now even more interesting: following the successful integration of the indoor and outdoor cameos, Somfy has rounded off HomeKit compatibility from the majority of the outdoor sun shading motors with I/O radio via the TaHoma Premium Smart Home control panel, which will be certified at the end of 2020.
In future, it will be possible to control roller shutters, external blinds, vertical awnings (screens), patio awnings and pergolas conveniently via voice recognition with Siri. The necessary software update for the TaHoma box has been available since December 2020. In addition to Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, Somfy thus creates further options for voice control.
Somfy’s declared goal is to continuously develop new solutions that enable every user to have a comfortable, safe and energy-efficient home. The focus of the “So Open Initiative” launched in 2018 is the customer experience – as well as the possibilities for clever networking of different devices. In addition to expanding its own product portfolio, Somfy cooperates with leading international brands such as Philips Hue, Velux or Sonos.
Another essential factor is the gradual expansion of compatibility with Apple HomeKit as an internationally popular and secure software framework.
Oliver Rilling, Head of Strategic Product Marketing, will not only speak at the Smart Home Forum about new products like TaHoma switch and the technical features associated with them, such as a solution that has been registered and nominated for the Innovation Award, but will also use his presentation to show the advantages that the Smart Home sector offers to the specialised trade. In the subsequent discussion round, it will be very interesting to see whether anyone picks up this ball and runs with it.