Software configuration of our 2008 BTicino system

This post diverts a bit from my usual photography topics. I recently moved into a house that is equipped with a BTicino MY HOME automation system, which was installed in 2008 and is used for controlling devices such as lights, window shutters and some power outlets. The backbone of the system is a physical, wired bus and connected to it are actuators for powering the devices, and controls (switches) installed throughout the rooms of the house. The system works by and large without a central component and configuration was done directly at the actuators and controls by setting hardware jumpers.

For adding flexibility and enabling modern features like voice assistants or mobile apps, I wanted to connect the system to our LAN and as first step get rid of the hardware jumpers and implement software-based configuration with the My Home Suite from Legrand, BTicino’s parent company. This blog post describes the steps required to get there, and the pitfalls I had to overcome, in the hope of making life easier for others facing the same task.

I’ll start with a description of our system and its components, then continue with the connection of the system to the LAN and then moving the controls and actuators to software-based configuration with the My Home Suite. The needed software and some of the helpful manuals were not easy to find, so I also provided direct download links for everything required.

Our System

Our system is equipped with BTicino components of the following types:

  • Controls: mainly L4652/2 basic controls, with some L4651/2 special function controls and one HC/HS/HD4680 scenario control.
  • Actuators: F411/1N and F411/2
  • F420 scenario module
  • L4684 color touch screen
  • E46ADCN power supply

Each actuator has an address consisting of a room (A), light point (PL) and optionally a group (G) value. In the original state of the system, the address was configured on the physical actuator itself using hardware jumpers. Each control also needs its own configuration linking it to one or more actuators, scenarios and defining how it should operate. Again, this configuration was done on the physical control itself using hardware jumpers. The following photos show the back of a control component and an actuator, with the green and blue jumpers in place for configuration:

For detailed information on an older BTicino My Home automation system like ours, I can recommend their technical guide from 2008, which you can find on my server. Also quite helpful was a discussion thread at the OpenHAB forum for BTicino users, the only active forum I could find with meaningful content on the BTicino system.

Before starting work on the controls and actuators, however the system needed to be enabled to talk to the outside world via our LAN.

LAN Gateway Options

The current and official way of connecting the My Home automation system to a LAN is the BTicino MyHOMEServer1, and also supported is the older F454.

However, there are also other components that have an Ethernet port, such as our L4684 color touch screen or the MH200N and MH202 scenario programmers. While those do not offer functionality like web-based configuration or app-control, they can be used as gateways for enabling configuration via the My Home Suite. I took my first steps with the L4684 color touch screen and then also successfully tested a MH202 as gateway. Other users have reported they are using the MH200N. The current incarnation of our touch screen, the LN4890, and its larger sibling the MH4892C also come with an Ethernet port and probably can be used as gateways, but you’d have to try for yourself to confirm that.

From the official gateways, the MyHOMEServer1 is configured and setup via a mobile app instead of the My Home Suite and also enables control of your system via (another) mobile app and voice assistants from Amazon and Google. However its support of older systems is limited, and in our case most of or actors and some of our controls are not supported, thus limiting the use of the MyHOMEServer1 for anything besides its gateway function. The device’s data sheet provides detailed information about supported components.

Therefore for a system like ours, the older F454 would be a better choice. It is configured and setup via the My Home Suite and offers a web-based interface for controlling your system, which supports also our older components. If you do not need that web-based interface, then any of the other “unofficial” gateway options mentioned above will work just fine. For adding control by mobile app and voice assistant, the F454 and any of the other options could be complemented by open-source home automation platforms like openHAB or Home Assistant.

Enabling the L4684 as LAN Gateway

In case of our L4684, there were some pitfalls to overcome to make the LAN connection work:

Originally the screen had firmware 3.0.16 installed, which only had a fixed static IP address pre-configured for the Ethernet port, mainly intended for direct connection via a cross-over Ethernet cable to configure only the touch screen itself.  So, to be able to use our screen as gateway, a firmware update was necessary.

The current firmware available for the L4684 is version 6.0.11, available from my server or the Legrand home systems website. For the configuration of the screen and firmware updates, it came with the Windows-based TiDisplayColorIP software. However as further complication, the version 1.0 that originally came with the screen was not able to process the much newer firmware file. The current version of TiDisplayColorIP is already 6.1.14 and can instead be used for the firmware upgrade. While neither the BTicino nor the Legrand websites have a download for that software, it is available from third party sites like informer.com, and I also put it on my server. Note that TiDisplayColorIP 6.1.4 and the old firmware 3.0.16 are not compatible for configuration purposes, but only for the firmware update. After the firmware update, TiDisplayColorIP 6.1.14 can also be used for configuration, which was also important, since the original version 1.0 does not seem to work properly under current operating systems Windows 10 and 11.

With new firmware 6.0.11 installed, the L4684 supports DHCP-based IP connectivity with the LAN and provides the gateway functionality necessary for the My Home Suite. To enable LAN connectivity it is only necessary to setup IP connectivity through the configuration dialogues in TiDisplayColorIP and provide an OPEN password that is then later used for authentication in the My Home Suite. I’d recommend setting up the screen with DHCP and defining a static IP bound to the screen’s MAC address in your LAN’s DHCP server.

A screenshot of the IP configuration in TiDisplayColorIP

For detailed instructions on the firmware update and IP configuration with TiDisplayColorIP, check out the software manual, again available from my server or the Legrand home systems website.

After that, the next step for moving to a software-based configuration is to setup the My Home Suite on a PC or notebook in your LAN.

The Legrand My Home Suite

Legrand is BTicinos parent company, and the BTicino My Home automation system is now also marketed and sold under the Legrand brand name. The My Home Suite is only available from Legrand and can be used for software-based configuration of the BTicino/Legrand My Home automation system. While the software is a bit aged in terms of look&feel, it is functional, powerful and straight-forward to use, and in my eyes well-designed for its audience of engineers and installers. At the time of writing version 3.5.19 is current, which can be downloaded from my server and again also the Legrand home system website.

Regarding documentation, the closest thing I could find is the software manual for the F454 server, which describes most of the My Home Suite functionality. I made it available on my server and it can also be found at the BTicino website. There seems to be no dedicated manual for the software itself, and trying to open the help in the software itself leads to an download attempt of a file from a BTicino server that is not available anymore.

After installing the software, it can be connected to the automation system by entering the IP address and OPEN password. In case of connection through our L4684 or the MH200N, there will be a warning shown that the connection goes through an inofficial gateway, but that does not seem to lead to any limitations in functionality.

A screenshot of the My Home Suite, connected to our system and displaying the control components

Now we are ready for the next steps: importing and configuring our components.

ID vs. By-Button Identification

Newer BTicino components come with a unique ID, which is used by the My Home Suite to address them for importing and sending their configuration. Older components do not have that ID, and for addressing them My Home Suite relies what it calls by-button identification. Basically you start an action in the software and then walk to your component and press one of its button to identify it as the one the action shall be applied to. This is of course a bit more cumbersome but still better than not being able to integrate those older components at all.

For the controls, all of our (relatively few) H4651/2 components and the HC/HS/HD4680 did not have an ID. Luckily, our most widely used H4652/2 components by and large already had the ID, with only a few exceptions. It seems when introducing the ID system, BTicino did not change the model numbers and anyway, the control components do not even have a model number printed on them. However it is possible to distinguish the H4652/2 components with and without ID by the layout of the elements on the back, as can be seen in the following two photos:

An older H4652/2 without ID

A newer H4652/2 with ID

For the actuators we are also stuck mostly with components without ID, with only three F411/2 actuators with ID. The actuators with ID have a QR code and the ID printed on them, so it was clear and easy to distinguish them from those without ID:

An older F411/2 without ID

A newer F411/2 with ID

In the next sections we’ll cover how components are scanned, imported and switched to Software-based configuration, and the different approaches needed for components with and without ID.

Scanning and Importing Components

Getting the components with ID into the software was easy using the Scan Automation by ID function, which reliably found and imported those components. For those without, it was a bit more tricky. Some, mainly actuators, I could find by using the Massive scan by address function, the remaining ones I had to get into the system one by one using Scan Automation by local button and walking to each of them to press one of their buttons to identify them for the software. The following screenshot shows where all three of those methods are located in the software:

After scanning and importing the components, the next step is to move them to a Software-based configuration.

Switching to Software-based Configuration

To switch the components to Software-based configuration, the following steps are necessary:

  • Change their Configuration Type from Physical to either Virtual or Advanced. Virtual mirrors the settings that can be done with the hardware jumpers, while Advanced offers some additional functionality, depending on component type and model. Virtual works with the by-button identification, Advanced with the identification by ID. Thus with the older components without ID, only Virtual can be used. With the newer ones with ID, Advanced has to be used if they should be addressed by ID, but Virtual could still be used with by-button identification. Unfortunately, when changing the Configuration Type, the current configuration is lost, so you need to memorize it or write it down.
  • Remove all the hardware jumpers from the component and disconnect/reconnect it from the bus. The component then indicates its readiness for configuration by a blinking light.
  • Send the configuration to the component from the software. For the new components, use the Send configuration function, which can also be executed for multiple components at once. For the older components, use Send configuration by local button, walk to the component and press one of its buttons to indicate the component as the one the configuration shall be applied to. Naturally, this can only be done one by one.

The following two screenshots show how configuration is sent to both the older and newer components. On the right side of the screens you can also see the difference between Virtual and Advanced configuration.

Sending their configuration to multiple components that have an ID

Sending its configuration to one component without ID with by-button identification

The next two sections describe how I mapped our existing configuration to the Advanced configuration of the newer components with ID.

Configuration of the Controls

For the older controls without ID the Virtual configuration simply replicated the previous Physical configuration set by hardware jumpers.

For the newer H4652/2 controls with ID however, the Advanced configuration looks slightly different.

Lights and power outlets are set to Function type=Light control and Modality=ON/OFF and only point to point dimming. The latter replicates the previous behavior of the upper part of the button being used for switching the device on, and the lower part for switching it off. If the Modality is set to Toggle, both the upper and lower part of the button can be used to toggle the device on and off. There are also other Modality values, and the software is supposed to provide documentation on them, however trying to open the documentation leads to a download attempt of a file that does not exist anymore on the BTicino servers. So you might have to experiment a bit to find the setup you need.

While our newer H4652/2 controls did come with an ID, they still did not support all of the Advanced configuration. For example, when using addressing type General, there will be a warning when sending the configuration to the component, saying it does not support all parameters. However, the General addressing still worked, so this was not a big deal for us. For Modality, there is also an option for ON/OFF and dimming, which again was not supported by our components, and in this case led to a warning that prevented the component of taking over the configuration.

The advanced configuration we use for our light controls

For window shutters the Function type=Automation control is used. Previously they were configured with UP/DOWN hardware jumpers, and I found that Modality=Bistable control replicates that behavior and works well for our shutters.

The advanced configuration we use for our window shutter controls

Configuration of the Actuators

Since only three of our actuators have IDs and thus would have supported the Advanced configuration, and the Advanced configuration of actuators provides quite a few additional options, for now I have decided to also configure those newer actuators with Virtual configuration, replicating their previous configuration set by hardware jumpers. At some point I will have a closer look at how the Advanced configuration works for actuators and then come back and update this post.

Final words

Although there were some pitfalls, by and large I am happy with how relatively easy it was to bring our old automation system into a Software-based configuration using the My Home Suite. In general, the system seems to be pretty robust, stable and mature. Despite its age of 14 years it is still well-supported by the current software versions from BTicino/Legrand and also their current hardware components are still compatible with our system and could be used for extensions.

As next step I will have a look at how their current official gateway/web server, the MYHOMESERVER1, could be used to add modern functionality such as integration with our Alexa voice assistants and mobile apps.

If you have any questions related to this blog post and the BTicino MyHome automation system, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Download Links

Below a list of the documents/software referred to in this blog post:

Firmware 6.0.11 for L/H4684 color touch screen: my server, Legrand

TiDisplayColorIP 6.0.14: my server, informer.com

My Home Suite 3.5.19: my server, Legrand

BTicino Technical Guide 2008: my server

BTicino TiDisplayColorIP Software Manual: my server, Legrand

BTicino F454 My Home Suite Software Manual: my server, BTicino