I've had enough with my hampton bay controller.
I keep coming across Bond. I'm not crazy about the idea of adding yet another hub but if it works that well..
Am I understanding correctly that Hubitat talks to Bond locally?
How reliable is is (provided nobody uses the RF remotes that come with the canopy modules? Just the fact that there's no way for it to know if the fan actually turned on or off, etc.
Pros / Cons?
Talk me into or out of it.
Just a curiosity question since I have 3 of these myself and have no issues. Should I be getting prepared for future issues? LOL. What kind of problems do you have?
Constantly falling off the network. I don't know what changed, but it has become completely unreliable. Lots of others reporting the same thing lately.
I took my Hampton Bay out after numerous disconnects (with a repeater being 15 ft away). Got a Bond hub. The best decision I've ever made. It runs 3 fans/lights in 3 separate bedrooms. Not a single hick-up.
Interesting, so far so good with mine. Had about a year. Even got the Alexa part worked out. Good luck
I have been using the Bond bridge for 2 years, and have yet to be convinced that there is a better option (for me).
Support has always been responsive. At our old house, I had some odd-ball RF remotes that were not directly supported. They walked me through getting them recognized by the bridge. When I noticed some flaky behavior last year, they sent me a new bridge and a label to return the old one for Engineering to analyze.
Operation - I have used it both as a stand-alone device, and in coordination with intermediary controls (IFTTT, Alexa, SmartThings, Hubitat, SharpTools, webCoRE, etc.). The only real complaint is that it does not report status, so the light can only be toggled. For fan speed, this is not really a problem for me, as my automations just command the desired state. Even if my wife uses the remote (savage, I know), it will go to the proper speed when triggered.
Reliability - If I just look at the 6 months that I have used the Bond on Hubitat, I estimate at least 1K commands sent without any observed failures. The Bond bridge location is the only potential issue. Ours happens to be in a central location on the second floor. If you follow the same best practices as locating the Hubitat hub, it should be no problem.
I've had bad luck with the King of Fans modules as well, I have 1 that still works. I replaced one with an Inovelli LZW36 Fan/Light combo about a year ago and it's been working great. I have Bond as well and it works fine with the King of Fans module or other RF module as long as you throw away the RF remotes as they will get it out of sync. I'd suggest the Inovelli though if it fits your needs, however there is no direct RF remote compatible so if you still want a remote it would need to be one through Hubitat.
i got a bond bridge to control my somfy blinds and it's been rock solid. i even tucked it away in a closet so it's out of sight and it still reaches all the blinds. yes, it's another hub, but it communicates with different devices than HE. the ability to add it into HE and have a single point of control is convenient though
Are you able to get a repeater ~above~ the hampton bay device? Like in an attic or room above?
I like my Bond hub. I'm running 3 fans in 3 different rooms and 2 gas fireplaces without having to rewire anything. There are some quirks when it comes to mapping remote commands, like I can't really tell from the interface if my daughters fan light is really on or not because the button on the remote sends the same command for on and off. But over all it was a good investment. A single Bond hub can probably support your whole house.
Thanks for the replies.
Am I correct in thinking the processing between it and Hubitat are local (no cloud)?
Hatallica,
So you can't dim the lights with it, or does that maybe depend on the RF module in the fan?
Rxich, I have a repeater about 8 feet from the unit in question. I don't know what happened, it was rock solid then totally went to pot.
Simmons777,
Luckily I don't have any rf modules for the fans yet. I'll have to make sure to get one with a descrete on/off buttons. Not knowing the status in Hubitat would drive me insane.
Depends on the remote control functionality. Some of my fans have 3 buttons for the light - toggle (on/off), dim up, dim down. Another fan only has 1 button - press to toggle, hold to dim up/down. Using the Bond app, I can access the same controls.
In the Bond Home Integration app, my fans with 3 button light controls show the following details:
[OEMRandom, SetSpeed, SetDirection, OEMTimer, ToggleLight, StartIncreasingBrightness, TurnOff, StartDecreasingBrightness, Stop, TogglePower, TurnOn, IncreaseSpeed, DecreaseSpeed, ToggleDirection, TurnLightOn, TurnLightOff]
I don't have any experience accessing the dimming functions through Hubitat, since we use the fan lights so infrequently and inconsistently. Hopefully someone else has played with this capability.
If you don't already have RF modules and have to buy those AND Bond Hub, I recommend the Inovelli Fan/Light switch instead. I had Bond previously and switched to Inovelli when the Bond stopped being able to control lights on 2 of my 4 fans. It was also frustration that the Hubitat didn't know the status of the fan with 100% accuracy.
I got a bond hub about 3 months ago and I can now control devices centrally and set conditions for when the fans, lights, and fireplaces turn on or off. And since Amazon Echo supports it we have voice control of these devices. It was a challenge to get the right configuration for each, but bond has the ability to learn commands from your existing remotes. I'd recommend it.
Read this:
Hub vs. Smart By Bond remotes - Bond Home Forum
Based upon that recommendation, I went with several of these:
The problem with the Bond hub is that it can't always keep your fan's state in sync with the state the hub thinks it's in.
These remotes are a little pricey, but my intent was to automate the fans via Hubitat. For reasons that have nothing to do with the fans, I decided not to put a Hubitat hub at that property though, at least not until they fix certain issues.
So I can't attest to how well these remotes work with HE, but they were very easy to set up using the Bond mobile app.
Pull the guts and get the Innovelli Fan Switch
These won't work for me. Really really small metal switch boxes. The main fan I'm tring to automate is also a 3 way.
I replaced one old metal box and fished a new wire from the attic but made a mess of the old plaster in the process. (Plaster and wood lath behind it). Wife says I'm not allowed to do that again. LOL
@Hatallica, Sounds good, makes sense. Thank you
@dcaton1220
I need to do more digging on those and if they integrate well with hubitat. I only have two fans that I need to automate. $120 for those two remotes, or $100 for a hub plus however much for a universal RF canopy unit for each.
These remind me of the sonoff I bought to play with. It was only $20 something, but you need to replace some caps in it for proper fan speed in the US. And the light is only on-off.
Works fine in the US. I bought four of them for a short term rental property we have. Being able to control lights and fans "normally" in that scenario is essential, regardless if there's automation or voice control for things.
Light control is a dimmer and works fine, as does fan speed control. Only con is that they're a little pricey, in my opinion.
The bond unit you linked above or the Sonoff? The Sonoff ifan03 is the one I was referring to needing different capacitors supposedly.
Bond. Worked fine out of the box with 2 different brands of fans.
Download the Hubitat app
