I came across Sonoff iFan04 canopy WiFi + RF Fan/Light controller (exactly the
same as these lovely HBs). They are around $5 on Ali Expess (I am not buying
anything from Ali) and Walmart has them around $23. So, I ordered 2 from Walmart.
According to the latest reports on Home Assistant the control is 100% local.
But if anything they could be reflashed with Tasmota. I am alredy using HA.
So if these toys could have local integration with HA I should be all set.
And if I am correct the Tasmota device could be directly integrated with HE of
course with local control.
1 Like
What turned me off from the Sonoff iFan04 was:
- lack of UL or ETL certification
- apparently no distinct "on" and "off" command for lights, only toggle (or at least it seems this way; the app and remote don't have it, and it would theoretically not be a problem if you only change it from Hubitat, but this is one of my least favorite things about Bond)
- also unclear if there is dimming control (another weakness of most Bond-compatible products is that they tend to only be able to dim in cycles, up or down but not predictable from the hub side of things or settable to a specific level)
The second might be solvable by Tasmota, and maybe I'm wrong about some of that. But I'm still holding out for the new Inovelli product. 
(In the meantime, I'm using smart bulbs with an on/off relay for the fan. I don't miss speed control of the fan as much as I thought, so it's actually not a bad idea for me...)
Thank you very much for your review. Reading more about this device it looks
like I should should reflash them with Tasmota right away. Toys should be in on
September 12. In my case I do need a sped control for the fan but for lights on/off
control is acceptable (of course dimming is preferable).
Lack of certification is bad but as temp solution these things could be OK.
That model is not Zigbee. It is only WiFi. Here is a link to the Sonoff Zigbee fan controller
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMZfJJ8
I have purchased many many Zigbee devices from AliExpress and have no issues with any of them.
I know, the one I mentioned is not a Zigbee but rather WiFi. This should not be a problem
because it has a local integration with HA "as is' and it could be re-flashed with Tasmota
(this is my plan). Both will provide a 100% local control which is a must in my case.
The one from your link is not a canopy style. I absolutely must have a canopy style fan/light
combo controller. And I am not buying anything from Ali Express.
For grins I had HE detect Zigbee devices after doing the 3 second on off x 5 and the controller was recognized. Hmm. I can control the fan and light again. I was doing the 3 second on 3 second off 5 times waiting for the light to flash. My assumption that the controller did not reset because the light didn’t flash was incorrect. Now to see if the other controllers respond to the re-pairing,
1 Like
I had a very hard time to reset controllers by toggling switch manually.
So, I created a very simple RM rule to do this job for me and it works 100% times.
Just in case here is a rule:
PS.
The original rule was based on a REPEAT statement but REPEAT is broken in the latest release.
UPDATE
The good news is - after I removed two Sonoff S31 and two IKEA Zigbee plugs from my Zigbee
mesh and replaced this toys with Third Reality (x2) and Sengled (x1) my two HBs somehow
reconnected themself with Zigbee mesh and now looks stable for at least two days.
From the other side two Sonoff iFan04 devices arrived. When I ordered them few days ago
I was thinking to reflash them with Tasmota. But just in case I tried integration with HA with
original firmware. Everything is working just fine and control is 100% local.
On top of lack of the UL certification there is no dimming for the light (only on/off) and the
remote looks terrible. But since my two HBs somehow fixed themself for now I will leave
then as a fan/lights controllers and see what happens (i.e. I wonder how stable they are now).
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
