I have a ceiling fan that’s controlled with a remote… but it won’t work if the wall light switch is turned off… is there a fan controller that replaces the light switch that can control the fan and light?
Hopefully something that’s Zigbee or Zwave… that way I won’t have to download another app and can control it thru ST…
Maybe, but it depends on how the fan controller is wired.
What’s the brand and model of the fan?
Also, what country are you in: the device selection does vary.
Im in America…
Here is the link for the fans
warmiplanet 52 Inch Indoor… https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQW5RVKW?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
The link you provided says you can’t use the fan with a switch the controls brightness or speed which is what a typical fan control switch does.
You could just take the switch out of the circuit which would solve your problem.
For that model, the easiest approach would probably be to first add a Bond universal fan remote. It works with most fans that have a handheld remote and has good smartthings integration. It doesn’t require any rewiring: the fan thinks it’s just another remote. This is a very popular integration option in the community:
And here’s the Amazon listing. You can see it gets really good reviews:
So that gives you voice control and smartthings routines control. Now you just have to decide what to do about the wall switch, since it’s the same issue as the handheld remote: if the wall switch is turned off, the bond will no longer control the fan.
you have a couple of options here.
- As @Paul_Oliver suggested, you can unwire the switch from the fan and then replace it with a dummy switch, which will work with smart things to activate different scenes that control the fan/light by activating the bond device.
Zooz has a multi button zwave switch, which might work well for this. Again, in this setup the wall switch no longer directly controls the fan. Instead it send a message to the hub, then the hub tells the cloud to tell the bond to send a message to the fan. It sounds complicated, but it can work very well.
There are some other similar devices from other brands you could consider.
- Another option would be to put a child lock box over the existing switch so it’s there if you want it, but nobody could turn it off by accident. These come in many different styles and colors. Some are sold as “thermostat guards“ to keep people from changing the thermostat settings. Others are sold as child safety devices.
- and yet another option is to put a “smart switch cover” over the existing switch, but that depends on the exact form of the existing switch. These work pretty much the same way as option one, but instead of being wired, to the mains, they are battery powered and sit over the top of the existing switch. I use this method in my own house for our ceiling fan control, but our setup is a little different than yours. If you just want on/off at the wall switch, there are several different options, including a Z wave device from ecolink that looks just like a regular switch except a little boxier.
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Anyway, the point of all that is that there are a number of different options for what to do about the switch, depending on exactly what you want to accomplish. But I think the bond remains the easiest way to get fan control into smartthings for the fan model that you linked to.
I have that Zooz 700 light switch… I tried installing it as a 4way for my stairs and couldnt get it to work… I’ll try and install it in the room…
That would be perfect…
Thanks for the advice
Just remember that you can’t use that to control the fan directly. It doesn’t work that way. You have to have a different device, in this case probably the bond, that is sending commands to the fan. Then you would use the zooz buttons to activate SmartThings scenes that tells the bond what to do.
Ok… I understand