Hey HubitatAus Hive Mind.
What's the conventional wisdom for automating ceiling fans. My preference is for Zigbee and at the moment I'm planning to use the Nue fan/light smart switch.
But I wondered if there was any better alternatives? I'd really love a Zigbee/Zwave native DC fan. But such a beast doesn't appear to exist.
I believe there are other people here that also run the Nue fan/light smart switch and have been happy with it. I haven't personally seen another AU/NZ approved route in the zigbee fan controller space. There are WiFi (Tuya) based options though with things like this but the zigbee route is likely much easier for you.
I personally have DC ceiling fans which use RF so each one came with their own coded remote controller to operate e.g no wall plate to operate then. Anyways for this I use the Bondhome.io hub which also workd with my Somfy blinds.
There was this issue with a version of the nue fan controller which I'm not sure if it was resolved.
I used to have a brilliant rf fan at my previous home and controlled it through a sonoff rf bridge flashed with tasmota and only ever controlled it through the hub so feedback wasn't important.
Reaching out on the off-chance someone has some wisdom on this one. I bought a couple of these Arlec Grid Connect floodlights today from Bunnings. I flashed one with Markus's Hubitat Tasmota and found a template here. Problem is that the template only allows for enabling/disabling the motion sensor built into the light, which is next to useless. You can't actually control the light. Does anyone own one of these or have any suggestions for getting it to be controlled? I've been Googling. I found a non-sensor Arlec light that had a GPIO that would control it. I tried PWM1 on all the GPIOs and nothing. I'm a complete noob at trying to set up a new Tasmota device. I pulled the thing apart and found one of these in some shrink wrap. That's the only IC I can find in the thing and it's tiny.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I looked at that device, from the description of what the product has as features in the native firmware (a a settable delay) and the fact that there are secondary MCUs:
I think these might be controlled through a serial connection, but you would probably have to trace what is really connected to what, the description in the link above is not clear. Once you know what is connected where, the best is if the secondary MCUs can be identified, if not, try to find other products that use something similar and have a working template with a description of the serial protocol. It could even be the TuyaMCU protocol, then it is rather easy once you know which pins are connected for that. The standard pins to use is GPIO1 for Tuya TX (107) and GPIO3 Tuya Rx (108). They could be on any combination of pins, but these are the standard two pins used in some products. Once you know you have a TuyaMCU over serial to deal with, then there are other steps to make it work.
I'd ask your question on here as well because this forum is very active especially with Arlec products.
I just wanted to make an update to my post last week. I had issues with the Arduino code it worked but after around 24hrs it seemed to just stop. I tried it a few times with the same result. Anyways I searched around and found this project. I loaded it onto the ESP32 chip configured into NodeRed and sure enough it works great and has been since early this week so if anyone had planned to complete go this way instead.
May post something on the Aus Home Assistant forum they are pretty on top of flashing all of the grid connect gear.
Thanks mate. Just joined and posted on that forum. See what comes of it.
Thanks Adam. I'll jump on there.
Thanks Markus. It sounds like something well above my level of experience and motivation. All I want to do is turn the damn thing on and off. My initial plan was to buy a dumb light and control it with a Sonoff and a Xiaomi motion sensor (using your driver, of course!) but the all-in-one solution appealed and it was pretty cheap. Hmm, now to decide whether I take these back or just wait for someone smarter than me to come up with a solution. 
So this morning I found out my new Hisense TV's have built in MQTT brokers. See here and here so I am now able to use in automation's. Pretty cool. Anyways if you have them too definitely check it out.
Putting it out there. Any support for an Australia buy/swap/sell thread? I don't know about you guys but I've got enough 'spare' devices to kit out another two homes. Stuff in my drawers that I can't be bothered trying to flog off on eBay or Gumtree as it's not mainstream enough to attract any attention that someone local might find useful. Just a thought.
Good idea. I have a bunch of crap to sell to.
Great idea. I have a bunch of stuff too sitting in a cupboard.
Good idea!
I am currently updating from Yeelights to Hue's and have a bunch of cheap white and colour bulbs I wanted to move. I guess HE wouldnt really want to have the burden of sales on their site. I have sold some stuff via PM here though - A hue bridge etc.
I guess we could ask. @mike.maxwell would we contravene any rules if we started a buy/sell thread for Australia? Happy if some ground rules were set around it. It'd be buyer beware. I think the community is savvy enough to understand the risks associated with buying stuff through a community thread.
I do not beleive so.
They invented gumtree and e-bay for that stuff.. Put it on there and provide a link..
Download the Hubitat app
