Mine did the flashing when pairing thing. It took a bit of messing around with the right timing/sequence, but it eventually paired.
Another thing to be aware of is these seem to have poor antennas, or poor antenna connections at times. There are a couple threads discussing that.
You should also be aware these work much more consistently and seem to pair better when there are Zigbee repeaters nearby. That is a rabbit hole in and of itself, but just be sure you have other line-powered Zigbee to strengthen your mesh.
If I might make a suggestion. Pull up the stop watch on your phone and actually time yourself counting seconds if you haven't already. I found "my approximation of time" to be way off when trying to reset zigbee devices (bulbs, led strips, these fans, etc). Once I started using a stop watch to get my timing right I find I can usually reset most anything the first time now.
The fan never blinked when doing a factory reset...the 3s on, 3s off, 5 times.
My solution:
I brought the HE hub close to the fan as suggested, did a factory reset (no blinking), started the HE hub discovery mode. It was discovered, blinked and viola!
I recently installed two Hampton Bay units which exhibited this exact behavior. I must have attempted factory reset ~50 times and just said F-it...sure enough it popped up in discovery an THEN blinked
Just another "Me too" to confirm here. It's very finicky, and when it did complete it showed up in Discovery before it blinked -- I think the blinking is when it pairs, not when it goes into pairing mode.
Although I left the transmitter unit inside the metal enclosure, I pulled the antenna about an inch out from the ceiling mount; it's not really visible unless you're looking for it.
I also used a small Innr outlet plug (ASIN: B07SXRQ1WX) in the room to help strengthen the Zigbee signal.
After all that, it paired pretty much immediately, and the drive is working perfectly so far.
-update- the instructions suck. 3 seconds never worked for me. I use 1 - 1.5 seconds per actuation. as soon as i can see the light come on-that's too long.
Try quicker switch flips, that always works for me. Also the trick with the peanut plug works magic, hit the peanut plug join button and the fan controller is discovered almost immediately after resetting it.
Do remove the peanut plug after you use it, it's a mesh killer.
Also try to get a mains powered zigbee repeater above the fan, that makes a huge difference. Either in the room or attic above the fan.
Y'all saved me so much grief. Did a new ceiling fan install today with the Hampton Bay switch and the instructions for reset in the manual was horrid. Instead of turning the fan on and off the instructions should say power cycle. I also never saw the light blink once until I did hub discovery. As soon as it paired, it started to blink happily probably 5 or 6 times and the fan clicked on and off as if to say "you finally found me!"
I’m not able to get the light portion into HomeKit vis makerapi. Anyone have a clue how to make the light show up as a dimmer or do I need to make a virtual dimmer or something?
Did you enable the feature on the HBFC device to have it create two child devices? One for the Fan and the other for the Light? These two child devices should be what you share with HomeKit via your MakerAPI app on the Hubitat Hub. Do not share the parent device.
There's anecdotal info that indicates more than a couple of the peanuts cause problems. Not must cause problems, but can cause...
Example, a peanut that is a major routing node is more likely to cause a problem than it is over on the edge, where it's routing for a single battery sensor . Which is a LOT of words to say, your mileage may vary.
I had two.. never had any problem with them. But I replaced them because I do not have a large Zigbee mesh and I DO have those darn Hampton Bay Fan Controllers that are worthless without repeaters.
I just resolved a weird issue with one of my Hampton Bay smart fan controllers today. One was exhibiting weird behavior, loud motor noises at low speed and the light stuttering and flashing depending on how fast the motor was running. It was a brand new fan, and it had the same motor noises without the controller so I thought maybe it was just the cheap $90 fan I bought and that I got what I paid for.
Turns out that the fan's main switch (the light fixture that it replaced) was on a dimmer and the idiot dimmer was spitting out weird voltages. I figured since I always left it on at max, it was fine, but I took a multimeter to it and the potential was all over the place. I replaced it with a $2 regular switch and both the fan and light correctly function at all speeds and best of all the humming went away.
I know the instructions say don't use a dimmer switch with the remote but it may have been better to say "do not use a dimmer switch under any circumstance even if you leave it at maximum." These digital devices don't suffer analog fools lightly.
With a dimmer, ON doesn't mean 100%. It might be close, but even at 99% you are affecting the voltage and current significantly like you found out.
The newer electronic dimmers are even worse than an old one, they chop up the voltage to dim, so you are getting those uneven results you notice. With a bulb (especially incandescent) you won't notice that choppy voltage. But an electronic controller will freak out.
So yea, they do mean it when they say dimmers are bad.
The issue was more severe than that. As I adjusted the dimmer I noticed the potential was sometimes 140V between the hot and neutral (I live in US) and the meter only reads RMS. Good thing I didn't break the controller all this time it had been in there.
I just submitted updated reviews to HomeDepot.com. Felt like I unfairly disparaged their product. Instructions could use some work but it's otherwise very good.
I installed per the HB instructions. Reset the remote control (3 sec X 5 times) and could not get a signal. Then purchased the Centralite smartplug (amazon) $18.
Set it up as a repeater and re-did the above steps. The Hub connected right up.
Clearly the Hampton Bay fan antenna is very weak.
Thanks @matthewschultz92 for the ideas
