What's the status of Smart By Bond integration?

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#1

I found a thread discussing Smart By Bond integration, but it's more than a year old.

I'm considering a purchase of a SBB fan/light. What's the current state of that integration?

I have the Bond Home Integration app installed, and I can control a couple of fan/light units with the Bond Bridge. Will a SBB fan/light work with this integration app?

If I turn a fan or light on or off with the fan's remote control, will the Hubitat app know that the state changed?

Any info or advice will be appreciated.

#2

There is no official integration. AFAIK, @dman2306 still maintains the integration he developed, linked to here;

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#3

That's the integration that I'm using. I saw in the code that there are a couple of references to Smart By Bond, so that gives me some hope that it will work.

Mainly I'm looking for "field reports" from anyone who has already added a SBB fan/light, to get an idea of how well it works and what (if any) functional limitations the Bond API imposes.

#4

We've been using the Bond and that integration for a couple of years here, controlling 3 fans - the most used one is in our master bedroom, where I have wall-mounted two Picos to control fan speed and fan lights. Never a problem.

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#5

@jwjr - what brand/model fans are you using?

#6

Oooh, that's a hard one. I think they're Hunters, but they've all been up there 15+ years, so I don't remember. They all came with this kind of remote.

#7

Looking at the integration linked here by @dman2306 it looks like it’s only for the bond hub and not Smart By Bond which is hubless fan controllers. Can anyone confirm they are using SBB (without hub) with HE?

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#8

@bob23 - that's the info I'm looking for. The code for the integration has some references to SBB, but I haven't looked at it or the API closely enough yet to know for sure.

#9

Hi @briangray.tx , I found info in this thread Support for Bond hub - #4 by jchurch that discusses the SBB without Hub by getting info from the app and using that. I haven’t had the time to test this yet but we’ll be trying it since it seems it should work.

#10

Yes this will work with SBB. Basically the SBB acts like a "hub"

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#11

@dman2306 - Thanks for the confirmation - and for your work on the app.

I already have a Bond hub installed that controls two fan/light units. If I add a SBB fan/light, do I need to install a second instance of the integration to control the SBB unit, or will the instance I already have talk to both the hub and the SBB?

#12

@briangray.tx the GitHub page says it only supports one hub but as I was combing through the thread someone set up multiple instances so I’d try it

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#13

Yeah you’d just install a separate instance of the app for the SBB since the app can only be configured for one hub.

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#14

Got it. Thanks, @dman2306

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#15

Good to know. I have previously used the hub, but slowly moving to SBB at the new house.

#16

@Hatallica - I am just starting to look into SBB fan/lights. I would appreciate any observations about the devices you have. In particular, I'm interested in fan noise level. Ease of installation? Reliability?

#17

For my wife's office, I recently installed the Minka-Aire Concept IV. Our criteria was:

  1. Not out of place in a mid-century house
  2. Bright LED light
  3. DC motor for the fan (quiet, efficient, wide range of speeds)
  4. Easy to adopt through Bond, but also has remote control

Install was a treat until the light kit. For some reason, I could not get the connector pins and sockets to align, so I snipped them and used Wago connectors instead. The Bond app picked it up immediately.

Admittedly, I have not added it to my HE hub yet. For marital security, I don't automate anything in her office until she asks, "why doesn't it know to do xxx?".

Minka-Aire is not the most expensive and certainly not the least. On their website, I recall being able to set a filter to only see smart fans. Based on my experience, I will certainly look at them first for our next room.

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#18

@Hatallica - Thanks for the report. I've been looking at the Minka-Aire page a god bit. Glad to hear that you're happy with them.

#19

Last month I asked the group about support for "Smart by Bond" devices in the Bond app. Today, I installed a Minka Concept IV (which has Smart by Bond). As @Hatallica said, the installation was easy. (I had no trouble with the light kit. I wish that the canopy cover was a bit larger - I had to work at getting all of the wires tucked in.)

Connection to the Bond app on my Android was easy. I then connected it to a second instance of the app in my HE. HE found the device (including fan and light). It works as expected. I am able to control both the light and the fan from the HE.

The only thing that appears to not work as I expect it to is the status polling. If I change the status of the light or fan with the Android or with the remote control, the status on the HE does not update after the polling interval.

@dman2306 - I can see the polling happen in the log at the expected intervals, but I can't see any info about the data that is returned. Is there a debug switch that will show more detailed info about each status poll?

Update: I am seeing the fan status updating as expected, but not the light status.

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