Ceiling fan controller?

Yes that is correct, here it is from my screen. I tried using the SmartThings multisensor for the temperature reading in “Thing with thermostat” then I switched to the ecobee3 as my temp input just to see if it would help. The device that I am sending the “Switch to control…” to is Dimmer Switch Device labeled Ceiling Fan Speed. BTW the temperature input reading is at 70.

Hey something is going on outside of your app! I reinstalled Virtual Thermostat and I get that one to crash SmartThings as well so it can’t be your app but something else like a device type maybe?

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Have you figured it out yet? It’s still working for me. It would be nice if someone else tried to install it.

I wish I could figure it out. I opened a support ticket with SmartThings to get some help. I do not think it is you at all since I get the same crash with Virtual Thermostat by SmartThings. For whatever reason I can get it to fail with your app very easily but I can get the same error with other apps. I think when support tells me “the developer” that is getting notified it will help my troubleshooting.

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I am not a developer so I am just curious, Is it possible to modify the SmartThings SmartLighting code to simply include Temperature as one of the triggers?

No, but you can use Rule Machine instead of Smart Lighting. It will do everything that Smart Lighting does (except run locally), and includes temperature as a trigger.

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Wanted to share. This is my git code and eagle file for my project. I have a Photon on the eagle board with a Cat5 cable connected to my Hampton Bay Controller. Enjoy

Cool, any pictures?

Sure do.

If anyone is wondering why I am using relays its because this could be done using transistors only. Here’s why. When I installed my fans back in 2014 I for some reason put all the code pins on for fan 0, pin 1 off and 2-4 on for fan 1 and so on. So I had to use a relay that is Normaly Closed. So when it was triggered it was actually opening the circurt. It was a decision on if I wanted to just use relays on my board or pull down the fans. You can guess what won.

This has been working good for a while. I just change the battery every so often and I’m good. My next project I want to do with a photon is connected to a Nextion display connected to a photon placed within an electrical box. With my new Ecovent system I want to have a display to send API commands to smartthings, to control the lights and fans, and also control the Ecovent room temps. It would be a decent project if I can figure it out. The photon is $20 and the Nextion is $10. Most of my projects I make working off of others projects to learn the code. Right now there’s no one who wrote a project that uses the Nextion with a photon and also no projects that send commands to smartthings from a photon. Just sending commands from smartthings to photon. If anyone knows any code let me know and I’ll get working.

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Wow very neat. Never thought of using Cat 6 like that… This is your own board design? How did you find that experience? Or are you a seasoned vet when it comes to custom pcb…

My design was based on a project from a particle post. https://community.particle.io/t/ceiling-fan-controller/6170?redirected=true I’m actually a nurse, everything I learned was from this community, partial.io community and GIT. Eagle software is free and super easy to use. I watched 2 or 3 YouTube videos on how to use eagle and was set. Sites like spark fun has a zip download for eagle of all their parts too so that makes things easy. You start out making your schematic than arrange the parts on the board, allow the program to make the wire tracing automatically. Than head over to oshpark and upload your eagle file. Depending on your board size 3 boards will cost you $30.

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hmmmm pretty cool, I’ll look into it. Thanks.

I check mine and all three draw about 1 watt each when in standby. Whew. I was worried I was wasting 75W. Not sure why yours are drawing so much in standby. Mine are all fairly new, less then 5 years old.

I was following this thread also and thought my thread might help anyone doing the same thing. Tom helped me out a bunch and I basically copied everything he did with a minor tweak for the fan light

You are going to burn out your fan motor. You can not use a dimmer switch to control fan speed.

I think this is what you are looking for.

https://docs.particle.io/reference/api/#create-a-webhook

This would be a pretty cool project. Good luck. I have worked pretty extensively with the photon so let me know if you have any questions.

Like everyone else, I ideally want something like the Insteon FanLinc that works with SmartThings…

At this point, I’d even settle for doubling up and having two controllers - one for the fan and one for the light, but it doesn’t appear as though anyone makes internal fan speed controllers…

So… I was thinking, why not just get one of the z-wave fan controller wall switches and stuff it into the ceiling?? Seems like that could do the job. Just because it is a physical switch, it doesn’t mean you have to use it as one!

Here’s what I’m thinking…

GE Smart Fan Control for the fan speed control - $44.99
Aeotec Z-Wave Micro Dimmer, 2nd edition for the lights - $34.95

For a total cost of $79.94

Stuff them both in the ceiling and BAM, you’ve got all the functionality of the FanLinc, plus the added bonus of a dimmer on the lights, for only $10 more. And it should all work natively in SmartThings.

Crazy??

There have been a couple forum members who have done something very much like that. In those cases, they always do so with the understanding that if you have a power/hub issue, you lose control of your fan aside from the pullchain… I thought very hard about it, but ultimately decided to fish new wire from ceiling box and extend switch box to double gang for full functionality and WAF :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Yes I’ve done something similar to that. I used the lights switches in a 3 way setup in the wall boxes. I put the fan controller in ceiling light box.

Read post 3 in this thread for info

I then installed a custom DTH to avoid the slider on the app screen. Like this one.

As previously stated you’ll only be able to control the fan with the smartthings app or another button controller or remote button.

I too have been looking for a solution, but I didn’t really want to build something myself. I found this the other day, and it’s getting delivered today. https://bondhome.io/ Right now, it will only interface directly with its app, Google Home, or Amazon Echo, but SmartThings support is in development. Since it just launched in August, there is still a lot of work being done, but it looks like it checks all the boxes and will be adding support for more devices over time. I will update once I get to try it.

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