So my existing ceiling fan died on me that is controlled by a GE Fan switch and a GE light switch through HE. I pulled the trigger to buy a harbor breeze fan to replace that met wife expectations. It's still being shipped but thought I would get a leg up on the install prep and when reviewing the manual it looks like they don't use 3 wires anymore to allow the light and fan to have separate power control. This model has a remote and integrated led light, plus it's a 6 speed fan. I am looking for ideas on how to best keep automated control over this. Main requirement is Alexa/Google voice control.
My initial thought was to dump the smart switches and pick up an RF bridge to hopefully gain HE/ voice capability. I do have a inovelli blue fan switch that I could move from another room but I don't think that driver supports 6 speeds. Any ideas or recommendations?
Does it have a canopy module or is the remote electronics integrated into the motor housing? You should be able to tell by the wiring diagram. If it is integrated into the housing you will probably be limited to something like a Bond Hub, simulating the RF remote. If it just comes with a canopy module (and is not a DC motor) then you can possibly just rip that out and bypass it, connecting the switches back up to it as you had before.
If you go the bond hub route, you could probably just wire the fan hot (bypass wall switches but leave them powered with no load attached). Then program the events from the switches to command the new fan device from the bond integration.
Looks like the remote is integrated. The wiring diagram only shows connecting load and neutral to these wago like connectors. I went and looked at older remote models and they definitely had a wire module in the canopy.
I read that if you use something like the bond it no longer lets the existing remote work. Is that true?
Would something like a broadlink rm4 possibly work as well?
Not totally, you can still use the remote but it would cause the Bond hub to become out of sync with the state of the device. The RF transmissions is only one way, so the remote or the bond hub is basically tracking what state the device should be in based on the commands it has sent it. Actually the remotes usually have no clue what state it is in, they just fire and forget. Unless the remote also has a BLE connection or something in which case it could talk two-way to the fan. You may want to make sure the remote is actually RF before getting anything else, I think it is still the most common option they use.
Any RF blaster should work but they will all have the same limitations.
Out curiosity, what model did you buy? I'm just looking at the manual page and many manuals seems to have diagrams for wiring with switches. Since you are looking at the manuals I assume yours does not, but I was just curious.
Sometimes you can just pass the light wires directly up through the fan for a direct connection, or take them off the controller. Some controllers also let you just leave the fan controller on "High" and then the GE wall switch will still control 3 speeds.
Some light kits are now low voltage, so there may a transformer in the fan controller as well. In that case you may need to buy a transformer to get down to the 12v or whatever the light uses for voltage.
You could also return the fan, and get one that allows for direct switches for the fan and light.
Personally, I wouldn't want to go with the the RF blaster solution, as you lose direct switch control, not to mention the desync issue.
Could the ECM (DC) motor speed be controlled by a 10 vDC dimmer?
As in taking the motor housing apart and hacking in something?
Of course, you'd still have to do lights, reverse, etc, etc, etc.
Unfortunately modern fans do not usually take smart home applications into consideration at all. Your best bet might be one that has Bond integrated in. Not sure how it works exactly but I think they can work with the Bond App natively without the hub? Maybe... dont quote me on that. Not sure how they would integrate though since the integration is local to the Bond hub.
Every ceiling fan in my home has the King of Fans module in the canopy, a wall remote and a hand held remote. Any three wire fan should work with this. Problem is they are scarce. Home Depot used to sell them under their Hampton Bay brand.
There are several types. The one that works with Hubitat has two antennas. One for the remote and one for Zigbee.
I'm using a Broadlink RM4 Pro for our ceiling fan (my wife bought it on Wayfair). It has the light integrated and is RF only. Out of sync isn't an issue for us. I don't need to know the light or fan state, since we only operate it while we're home.
I have one of the buttons on our bedside Picos programmed to toggle the light, and I'm using an Inovelli LZW36 as a button controller for the fan and light (not using the canopy module becuse it's not compatible with the fan). All works great, and most of the time we just use the fan remote. But we can use the LZW36 if we want to. Options are good.
I used @tomw 's Broadlink driver to capture the RF codes from the fan remote. Has been 100% reliable (which has been a surprise) for several years now. Not surprised that Tom's code has been reliable, but I'm pleasently surprised that the LZW36, together with the RM4 Pro (in another room), and the fan have just always worked perfect together.
Only complaint I have is with the fan itself. The integrated light, which we don't actually use very much, is around 3000˚K (a little too far toward cool for my taste). It also flickers like mad when we're charging the car, so we don't turn it on at all during those times.
Recently I was thinking about replacing my two old dumb fans with something modern. The problem is - many (if not all) nice looking modern fans are using dc motors. Unfortunately the dc motors are not playing well with home automation. There are number of fans with ac motors but my wife didn't like them. So, the solution is - do not touch something which works just fine and does very nice job.
In this case, the fan isn't infinitely variable, it has 6 speeds, so maybe 6 different resistors to modify the 10Vdc. I'd say control it with the dimmer so it's infinitely variable. Maybe a change in polarity of the 10Vdc would reverse the fan; that could be arranged with a relay, I'd imagine. The lights could be separated and controlled separately.
I’ve been eyeing this thread for quite some time. But, I would hate to go out and buy a DC fan from a big box store just to find out it doesn’t work. Fortunately, we’ve consistently found 3-speed fans that we can live with as we fit out the bedrooms.
There are few different versions of whatever called DC Motor. Old style Brushed DC Motors definitely could be controlled by variable voltage power source. In this case output power is also proportional to the applied voltage.
Modern DC Motors are actually 3-phase brushless motors controlled by 3-phase inverters which are powered from DC source. This motors have constant output power but speed is controlled by variable frequency. However there are very many ways how to control frequency. And sure, variable voltage could be one of many ways how to control frequency.
Unfortunately too many variables in this are and therefore there is no simple answer.
