GE Ceiling Fan Switch Custom Device Type - Low, Med, High buttons w/no slider!

Yep. No problems here.

Thanks for confirming. I’ll keep at it.

I just came upon this code. It’s great because I much prefer the buttons and no slider.
I’m using revision 03-11-2017. Created a new device handler - and change existing GE fan control switch to the new device handler.

What works -
I can turn it on and off. Alexa (Amazon Echo) will respond to turning ceiling fan to on and off, and set fan to low and high speed.

What doesn’t work.
The buttons (low, medium, high) inside of Smartthings app for ceiling will not work.
Alexa is unable to set the fan to medium speed. Her response is she doesn’t know how to set ceiling fan to that setting.

What I am doing wrong? Will I need to remove ceiling fan from smartthings hub and add it back again? I was under the impression that by changing device type to this custom type - it would work.

FWIW, I disable and re-enable smartthings skill from within Alexa app. No luck on the medium fan speed.

Thank you.

Not sure why that is happening for you but it is unrelated to the Alexa ‘issue’ you are reporting, Perhaps try just refreshing on the Thing screen in the app.

Alexa is not really setting the fan to high and low per the device handler. It is interpreting ‘high’ as set higher and low as set lower, as if it were a dimmer. It does not have a medium equivalent it can recognize thus what you are seeing.

With Alexa you can tell it to set to a percentage. Different fans have different thresholds at which they run for low, med and high. In my case, all my fans run at low at a 33% setting, medium with 67% and high at 99%. So I can tell Alexa to set to 67% and it will set the fan to it’s medium speed.

Nezmo - Thank you. Yes, this issue is not related to Amazon Echo. It still responds to set ceiling fan to 60% as medium speed. I just wish that I can tell it to set to medium since it responds to high and low speed.

While inside of Smartthing app - I hit refresh several times. Log in and out of Smartthing IDE. The buttons, low, medium, and high just won’t work. Only on and off button works. Not sure why this happens and how to go about troubleshoot this custom device handler that is working for everyone else.

Yes, unfortunately Alexa does not have the capability yet to do true low, med and high with respect to the actual fan speeds. What it does do for low and high is just kind of a luck thing as it lowers and highers the ‘dimmer’ setting which Alexa does handle.

What’s even more frustrating is SmartThings does not have a stock handler like the custom one. They claim compatibility yet their handler just has a slider which is not the best.

I wish I could help on that one. I have not had that issue. I set the custom device handler for my first fan install and all I have done since picked-up the same custom handler and do not have issues either. Hopefully the device handler author can offer some troubleshooting tips.

It may not “be the best,” but it has other favorable attributes. For example, in my second home, we use SmartThings to run ceiling fans twice a day for an hour each time while we aren’t in residence. With the “stock” DTH, it runs locally on my v2 hub – meaning it “should” run even in the absence of an internet connection (even though I have no way to remotely verify this, LOL).

That being said, a three-button fan implementation officially supported by ST – and available for local execution on a v2 hub – would be highly desirable :sunglasses:

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Hi @peterlin71,

When you tap on any of the speed tiles it takes just a second or 2 for the main tile to update, and that’s because the device adjusts to that speed like any other dimmer. If you notice how those work, you can actually see the slider move to the desire value. In my DTH, the main tile will change once that value it met.

After you tap on any of the speed tiles, what does the IDE show for the details? You should see something like this:



Hi @johnconstantelo
When I press low, med, or high button within Smartthing app - I see changes in CurrentState. However, level remains at 60%. Also I see that “Fan speed is set to HIGH” within the app - right under the On - stays the same.

And if I press Low button, I see no change in fan speed. I would press the off button. Fan will turn off. I press the on button, Fan will turn on. It would briefly read “Fan speed is set to Low” - but changed to “Fan speed is set to HIGH”

Somehow it is stuck at 60% or revert to HIGH speed. Since I no longer have the slider, I would tell Alexa to change fan level to 80%. And that’s the level I’m in - I cannot change with the 3 speed button within the app. I hope this makes sense.

Current States
switch: on
level: 60 %
indicatorStatus: when on
checkInterval: 1920
currentState: HIGH
currentSpeed: HIGH

switch: on
level: 60 %
indicatorStatus: when on
checkInterval: 1920
currentState: LOW
currentSpeed: LOW

switch: on
level: 60 %
indicatorStatus: when on
checkInterval: 1920
currentState: MED
currentSpeed: MEDIUM

@johnconstantelo, been using this for close to a year, love it! Thanks for your work on this :slight_smile:

I also love being able to set Low/Med/High in webCore vs choosing random percentages

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What do you have set in preferences in the Thing for Low, Medium and High? By default I believe these are blank and the handler then uses 33, 67 and 99. Have you by chance got something set in prefs?

And @johnconstantelo, it’s your handler that doesn’t have the slider right? I’m using @ChadCK’s which does keep the slider and maybe the prefs are different - I can’t remember,

That’s a good point @peterlin71 that’s been made. Can you go into the device’s preferences and double check those values and then tap on Done?

Correct, but mine still has the device preferences in case they need to be tweaked for some reason.

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Good question. My device preferences are blank. I edit device preference to 99, 1 (LED value - I don’t know what this should be), 33, 67.

After editing device preference, this is working now. It took a few minutes for the preferences to take effect. Yay! Thank you both.

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Excellent!

Here’s what the values mean:

  • “When off” means the blue LED stays on when you turn off the fan. This is handy for a night light indicator to help find wall switches at night fir guests.
  • “When on” means the LED stays on when the the fan is on, and off when the fan is off.
  • “Never” is pretty self explanatory.
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Just wanted to add that in my experience, for the GE Fan Control, ‘never’ does not work. The LED will come on when the control is on even when that’s set to never. Otherwise, the other settings work.

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Good point, I’ve never used "never before, so I guess I shouldn’t make that assumption!

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My GE fan control stopped working and I have done as much trouble shooting as I can, reloaded and redid the connection. NO luck, any suggestions.