Sonoff Fan Controller - $12

$12?!?!

Link?

This may or may not be what the OP was referring to:

LINK.

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It was. I thought I posted the link. Thank you. I will update it now.

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Oh, WiFi, not Z-Wave or Zigbee? And yet another Chinese Android/iOS smart home app with a low review rating level requiring a connection to odd Chinese servers?

I'm with @stephack - hope the hardware can be hacked for local control and skip the Chinese server requirement.

That's why I tagged @ericm. He has the original sonoff connected to smartthings with a custom firmware. I'm hoping he can do his voodoo on these as well. I really like my Hamptons but the connectivity glitches can be PITA when it rears its ugly head. And $12...I'd buy one just to mess with it.

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Hope so. I just ordered two.

[Edit] Looks like there was a thread that @ericm posted to, but nothing ever came of the manufacturer info. I'll crack one open and upload photos of the PCB when it arrives.

I don't use an important Google Account for Google Assistant, so I figure if direct control isn't possible, as least I can control it from Hubitat with @ogiewon 's cool mod to Google Assistant Relay that lets us send silent commands to any Google Assistant compatible device.

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Is this UL listed? I don’t see it on pictures of canopy module. I doubt it given price.

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Someone found the schematics for it and posted. I believe this is what @ericm needs. It shows an ESP8285, not an ESP8266. Of course I know nothing about either of those, so hopefully that's not a barrier.

[Edit] The ESP8266 and ESP8285 are apparently the same, except that the ESP8285 has onboard flash memory. I think that's sounding good? :thinking:

[Edit 2] And, I just stumbled across some work that's already been started on the IFAN02 module :smiley:

What in the world does a fan speed/light controller need a buzzer for?

In my (admittedly limited) research on this, I came across this github thread that details the progress with the Tasmota firmware...I believe this is what the ST integration was based off of. Looks like this is now supported, so there is hope.

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I've read through that entire thread, and several people are reporting the speeds they get aren't matched with their expectations or what they were getting with the manual pull-chain low-medium-high speeds. There's discussion about the on-board capacitors of the Ifan02 and whether they're matched to the internal caps of their fans.

Also, correctly wiring up the two leads of the Sonoff to a multi-lead motor of a typical American ceiling fan seems to be something of a trick.

And... flashing new firmware requires the module to be connected to mains.

I'm going to wait until all the verdicts are in and the tricks fully fleshed out.

Probably to figure out whether you've picked up the correct remote for the fan you want to control.

Well that's a good idea.

I read the same thing about the motor speed. So some modification is going to be needed. This should be fun to tinker with.

My firmware was developed alongside Tasmota (and espurna for that matter), but admittedly, they far surpassed what I had implemented. SmartThings integration with easy integration is the main advantage of the firmware I developed. For $12 I bought one to play with, but I'm not sure if I will have time to work on it. It might be as easy as changing some GPIO pin numbers around though.

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Ordered July 8, they just shipped on July 17 :face_with_raised_eyebrow: Status today is "The item has been arrival the transport center of SF" today.

Expect to wait a fair amount of time for these!

So these arrived yesterday. And of course I have no time for them now! :roll_eyes:

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Just got around to playing with this tonight. Had hoped I'd at least be able to control it via Google Assistant Relay in its stock form (which I can) but only simple ON/OFF, which isn't what I want. I want to control this with a Pico that I will also use to control zigbee bulbs on the fan.

@ericm I stumbled across this post. Sounds like it's really not that hard to get it to a state that can be controlled directly on the LAN, but to me that whole process is foreign.

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Man that's a sweet deal. My goal was to not get wifi devices though... Why Sonoff!? WHY!?

I've come across a method to link a single pole Sonoff switch that does not require a firmware update. To me this might not be worth the bother for most people, because it seems to be relatively straight forward to upgrade the firmware on most Sonoff models. It also does not work with the iFan02, but Sonoff superstars like @ericm may figure out a method for flashing it still, and so any other method might not be needed. However, if you're like me and have never done any Sonoff firmware flashing, it might be a very steep climb to get there.

I'm going to create a separate post and I'll come back and link to it here. It took me a while to figure out the exact steps and some important steps are only mentioned in the comments of a video I found, but the methods for even those steps aren't explained. So I created a step by step to make it easy to understand what it is, what it is not and how to get there.

Let me be clear that, what I found is a method to allow a Node plugin for Homebridge to control Sonoff via their cloud instance, and it does not currently even work with the iFan02 controller. My hope in posting the step by step for this method is that, if @ericm can't figure out a reasonably simple method for flashing of the iFan02 controller to make it directly usable in HE with the development of a custom driver, we can at least have a way to setup a simple node server, and then perhaps someone can figure out from the code that exists, how to create a stand-alone Node application that doesn't require Homebridge. Then it should be possible to create a custom driver in HE to control the Sonoff iFan02 by way of the Node.js server by just following the procedure I'll define in the separate post.

[Edit] Post created: How to capture the authentication token from EweLink

In case @ericm or anyone else finds this helpful, here are the schematics for the Sonoff iFan02

https://github.com/arendst/arendst.github.io/blob/master/media/ifan02/iFan02Schematics.pdf

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[UPDATE]

I figured out how to add full fan and light (on/off) support for iFan02 in Homebridge. No firmware flash required. Will create a full step by step. Not ideal for everyone, but it is at least possible to control it via HomeKit automation by using virtual switches to trigger and HomeKit Scenes.

[Edit] Step by Step available here

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I got mine a few weeks ago and just had some time to play around with it. It is similar to the 4CH so getting it to work with my firmware is actually pretty simple. I have it mostly done and will post it soon for testing.

As for flashing it, I read that an external power source is needed, but that wasn't necessary for me. The 3.3v from the FTDI adapter worked. I just connected 3.3v, RX, TX, GND (J3) to the FTDI adapter and grounded TP16 (on the bottom of the board) while plugging in the USB. First flash and it started broadcasting the AP.

So far I am able to turn on/off the light and adjust the fan speed 0,1,2,3. The included remote still works to control it as well.

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