I've been, with some success, controlling my Haiku L Series fans using community drivers. They access the fans directly via their IP addresses, providing local control. I admit, these fans seem to have been one of those "the first, but now not the best" thigns when it comes to their "smart" components. Changing the WiFi password/setup is an exercise in pain!
So, I went through that today. It was necessary sadly. Got one fan out of 4 working so far. As I was proceeding through this process, the Haiku app informed me there is now a new app from Big ■■■ Fans to control the fans. Many improvements were mentioned, but some limitations too. Of course, this will require a firmware update to my fans. The app was kind enough to put the fear of failure into me by pointing out the upgrade is irreversible.
Has anyone taken the plunge on this latest firmware update for these fans? If so, did it fix any problems, or more importantly, cause any new ones? My greatest fear is it may mean these community drivers for Hubitat may no longer function.
I found out the hard way that the new firmware makes the Hubitat unable to control my Haiku fans. . As for the new App, it's ok. Seems like there is less functionality compared to the old App. I haven't found any place to set the min and max fan and light settings. I hope someone is able to modify the existing driver to work with the new firmware.
I'm really hoping someone can update this driver to support the new firmware. I'm even willing to track down one of those "bug bounty" services to pay for it.
I have been getting along fine with keeping all but one of my fans I (experimentally) updated to the new firmware, until this week. I've encountered the most odd, repeated problem with one of my Haiku fans. I may be stretching the limits of this forum by going into this since it's clearly not a Hubitat issue (or is it?), but feel someone may have seen the same issue. Elsewhere online I can't find it mentioned.
I have two identical Haiku fans in one room. Using the Haiku app directly, I have paired the two so they function as a single "room", and thus a single device to Hubitat. The problem is truly bizarre. Each morning, I turn the fan lights on as I start my day, using a set of rules in Hubitat. I then leave for the gym, using a routine to turn all my lights off and do some other things, all in Hubitat. When I return in an hour, I use the same "start the day" rule in Hubitat...and only one fan light comes on. The fans still respond in every other way, are on the network, and show up in the old Haiku app. In the app is where I see the problem. The fan with the unresponsive light has...no light. As in, Haiku thinks it's a fan without the capability to turn on a light. The only solution I've found is to ungroup the fans and power cycle the one fan without a light for about 5-10 minutes. When I restore power to the offending fan, the light comes on. As soon as it reconnects to my Wifi Network, the light shows up again on the fan in the old Haiku app. I then add the fan back to the room in the Haiku app and for the rest of the day and even the next morning, everything is fine. Then, on the second run of the "start my day" rule, the problem starts all over again.
I assume the issue HAS to be with the fan itself, not Hubitat, but I could be wrong. The problem is, if I go to BAFs for support, the first thing they are going to do is ask me to upgrade the firmware, which will completely break integration with Hubitat.
Has anyone encountered this strange issue? It's intermittent, and yet, occurred every day like clockwork this week.
I'd love an updated Hubitat driver. I think the hard work of understanding the API is already open source. The Homebridge driver works perfectly with my Haiku fans:
I forgot why I wasn't updating the Haiku firmware and I didn't remember until I'd updated both of my fans, now the lutron pico wall switches I'd programmed with Hubitat no longer control them properly
I have now set the lutron switches to send alexa commands to the fans instead with a few Echo Speaks actions (ie trigger: button pushed, action: voice command - turn on fan 1), but it takes a few seconds to trigger, lacks state awareness, and I just hate relying on the cloud, and would also much appreciate updated drivers...
The one bright side of the new firmware is that it allows for direct Ecobee integration with the Haiku L fans, turning up Haiku fan speed when my heat pump is running (I think?) to help distribute air, which is nice I guess. The fans would also occasionally lose WiFi connectivity on the old firmware, but that hasn't happened again since updating.
I looked into what it would take to make a new hubitat driver for the updated firmware, and it's painful due to the new firmware using protobufs (a binary protocol) to communicate, vs. the old firmware using a text-based protocol. For now I ended up downgrading my firmware: https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/69370#issuecomment-1092037879
I recently stood up a local VM image of Home Assistant. I admit, programming automations in it is MUCH harder than Hubitat, but it seems to have a more robust set of drivers for devices. It discovered the one Haiku fan I had on the new firmware right out of the box. From there, I used the Home Assistant Bridge plugin for Hubitat to import my fans on the newest firmware.
It's working well so far. Just adding this out here for anyone who has this as an option, and until if/when someone updates the drivers for Hubitat.