Hi guys, I had some spare time to deal with the lights in my master bedroom and found out the switch in the wall won’t even turn the lights on/off the actual load wire it’s at the ceiling fan and we were turning on/off the lights and the fan with the cords that hang out of the ceiling..... weird isn’t it, it’s an old old house had who’s knows what has been done with the wiring.
Is there any solution that I can install by the ceiling that I can control both, light and fan???? I can use 2 smart bulbs to fix the light situation but what about the fan???
Look into shelly. Otherwise there is a fan/light module that you can put into the fan housing sold by home deport as well. I don't even know if it's still an option. Seems it was a "tease" and was never actually available from them. I looked into getting it, but then we moved and all of my fans were wired for lights and for fan speed, so they were not needed. But, I would suggest putting something in the fan housing. I think that there are a few options.
That's the Hampton Bay Fan Controller. There is a built-in driver for it here on Hubitat and it is on the supported devices list. It works wonderfully! The only thing is, you have to have a strong zigbee mesh and you need to have a repeater in-line with the unit's zigbee antenna. The unit goes in the fan cowl and the cowl is metal. In addition, you have a giant spinning electromotor about 1" from the thing. All of this means that there is a lot of radio interference for it to overcome and the zigbee radios are....let's say, not the strongest in the world. But, once you find a sweet-spot for your repeater, these things are ROCK-SOLID. Just takes a bit to dial them in. Means no rewiring for the fan.
If you are going to go with the Sonoff fan device, I have not seen a driver for that that works with Hubitat yet. And as far as Shelly goes, that gives you two relays, so you can turn the light on and off but can't dim it. And you can turn the fan on and off but can't control the speed. Why spend so much money to get 1/10th the functionality. The Hampton Bay unit can be ordered on homedepot.com with free delivery to your local store. I have two of them and would highly recommend them.
There is the shelly 1PM or the Shelly 2.5 that can be used to power the fan on/off with power usage built-in.
Shelly also has come out with the Dimmer for lights. It's in prototype development right now and being tested. It should be out by end of November 2019.
And I think I heard they might come out with a fan control device but it's not confirmed yet.
Op (I can say Op cuz I live in Iowa) My bad. I should have looked at the photos. It was, in fact the one I looked at, but mistook it for just the remote.
Found one on eBay for 35$ I think I’m going with the one Ryan is suggesting, I’m going to buy it on eBay and I hope it’s easy install and configuration with our he, also can I control it with google home?
That is a little trickier since the HE Google Home integration doesn't support Fans. So, it comes across as a dimmer by default. If you're familiar with IFTTT there are work a rounds I've found that allow you to speak the speed commands but they are a little more involved so i'm not sure you'd want to try that. The light however is very easily controlled from GH just like any other light.
Then I would not recommend using this device. It is not recommended to use conventional dimmers with smart bulbs. The lights on the fan will blink during the pairing process to indicate it is successful. This could damage your Hue bulbs.
I would just not connect the Light side of the HB controller and leave the lights always powered. Just know that they won't blink when pairing/resetting. That's all. And the light control on the remote won't work either.
I would like to note, that your original post was about both the fan and the lights. I would recommend using the light control on the HB unit and removing the smartbulbs. Then you can use them somewhere else.
If you get the Hampton Bay unit, do yourself a favor and either buy a new antenna for it or at least open it up to make sure the existing one is attached securely to the connector. People have noticed problems with these having weak signal and needing a repeater in the same room for them to work reliably (or two repeaters or one a floor above, etc.). The module opens very easily and it's easy to check or replace the antenna. See here for the instructions I followed: Hampton Bay Zigbee Controller - Intermittent Connectivity - Resolved
Since doing this, I was able to get rid of the repeater I placed as close as possible to the fan (for no purpose other than this) and my RSSI has improved greatly despite the latter. This is a lot easier to do before you install the module, so I thought I'd share what I wish I knew then.
Also, the next hub firmware (2.1.6?) will have a driver update for these that will handle things better if/when you need to reset and repair them and its DNI changes. Hopefully, I won't need to do that anymore, but if i do, that should help too (after I recreate the device once, so if you happen to get this thing tomorrow I might wait for the new firmware just in case).
I’ll get it tomorrow on eBay and will take like 4 days to come so I’ll wait for the firmware update and for sure I will check the antenna and I thanks for the heads up, one thing my hub is really close like 10ft away behind a wall I hope I don’t need a repeater
If you have the Zigbee antenna (the white one) on the hub side of the fan, it might not. One of mine had the antenna on the far side of the fan from the hub. It actually routes through a repeater which is twice as far away from it than the hub is. Sometimes you just never know with these things.
the actual load wire it’s at the ceiling fan and we were turning on/off the lights and the fan with the cords that hang out of the ceiling..... weird isn’t it, it’s an old old house had who’s knows what has been done with the wiring.
