Hampton Bay Zigbee Fan controller

There was no second switch for fan and both fan and light were controller by the single switch on the wall. I really think when they redid the wiring in this place relatively recently they just used four wire all over the place and probably because I have an absurd amount of 3 and 4 way switches, just not in this room. Maybe they just ran it here for the option of separate switches at a later date. Who knows? There is a list of mile long of weird shit the owners did, I don’t try and understand why lol. Okay so here is what I am working with:

At the wall switch. Appears to be simple single pole single throw paddle switch. Black wire on bottom appears to be line, black and red wires on top appear to be line (running to fan), exposed wire is ground, white wires for nuetral tied together in the back of gang box as expected.

Coming from the ceiling to the fan I have black, which is line from the switch, which was connected to black on the fan motor, red; which is also line from the switch, which was connected to the blue for the light; white, neutral running to the white wire for fan; and green which is connected to both the fan and the mount for ground. I only have both blue and black tied together to red in this picture just because I wanted to quickly get the light working again as it was getting later and dark yesterday and I had dropped the other nut. They were separate prior to me starting. That said, again I really don’t have any reason to believe that there is any difference between red and black from the wall. They both terminate to the same contact on the wall switch and both either together, or separate, are capable of powering both the light and the fan without any problems. It’s only after I put the controller between them that I can’t get it to work.

I have not taken my multimeter to the wires yet before or after the controller. I have one, but I have only ever used it on small DC circuits. I am not familiar with testing with it on AC. I know red/positive would go to line/load, but where does black/negative go from my multimeter? Neutral or ground?

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A/C has no red or black as far as the meter is concerned, make sure the meter is set to A/C. You should be able to measure from the neutral to line 110v on the input and on the output of the controller from the white to either black/blue. This reading will vary with the fan speed or dim level but should peak at 110v

I haven’t seen it mentioned or missed it, but have you used the remote to turn the fan on Hi and the light on full? If you didn’t get the remote, the unit might be on low speed and the light off. Pairing should still work and then you can see where the settings are at.

Line means it is always hot. It provides power. Load means it is drawing power (loading) from the Line. With the switch OFF, the Line will always be powered, and the Load will have no current. Is your top terminal (with black and red) Load (no current with the switch off)?

Your pictures are not very clear, and I can see nothing inside the fan canopy. Is the Red wire connected to only 1 single wire that goes TO the fan? If so, disconnect it at both the fan and switch and cap them! You do not need it since you already have a Load coming from the switch (black wire) and this receiver only takes 1 Load input.

On the receiver, there is 1 side that has red and white wires. Connect the receiver’s red to black wire from switch and white from this side only to the white wire from the switch. Cap off the red from the switch! On the other side, you have black, white, blue. Again, I cannot tell from your picture, but you will have 1 white wire and either 1 black and 1 blue, or 2 black wires on the fan. They should be labeled Light/Fan. If they arent, you will need to figure out which is which. If they are different colors, blue should be light. Connect the receiver blue to the fixture’s light wire, the receivers black to the fixture’s fan motor wire, and the white wire on this side of the receiver to the white wire on the fan. Your green ground should be connected to the mounting bracket and to the ground coming in from the switch. The receiver itself is not grounded.

Sorry I meant red/black on my multimeter cables. But thanks now I understand. Positive to line/load. Negative to neutral. I did not purchase any remotes with the controllers. I do however have some Hampton Bay remotes but they do not seem to work with the matching dip switches. Possibly they are incompatible? If it makes sense I guess I could run buy home depot today and get a remote from this brand?

Yep to put more simply I had:

Black from switch/ceiling > black (maybe red?) on controller
White from ceiling > white on controller
Red > unused

Then on the other side:

Black from controller > black on fan
White from controller > white on fan
Blue from controller > blue on fan

The only thing I had not done in your example was remove the red from the switch, but I didn’t see why that would make a difference in testing if they are both line and both connect to the same switch contact. Once done installing I would of course cap red and do away with it, it was just freezing rain and I didn’t wanna venture to the breaker box yesterday so I didn’t want to mess with the switch if I didn’t have to yet.

Isn’t this the receiver you have??

Just realized I made a typo, I meant black not both white. Also, I may have to double check when I get home, perhaps I am getting my colors mixed up on the existing ones on other fans in my home. The product image shows a black wire though if you scroll up in this thread. I know which wires are which on the controller in in terms of line/load versus neutral, they are labeled as well. Was just trying to clarify I have the input wires connected correctly and don’t think that is where my issue is.

My biggest point and concern is about how I am able to detect voltage on the blue when the light pull switch is on, but the light doesn’t come on. I will check it with a multimeter tonight. Maybe the light is technically on but at 1% brightness or something.

I also just went ahead and ordered one of the thermostatic remotes from my local home depot which should be ready for pickup today and will test with that tonight as well.

When you get the remote it will have not only the normal 4 dip switches, but also another switch that allows/blocks dimming. The documentation doesn’t make this clear. It simply says set it to INC or D if you have incandescent bulbs and CLF or O if you have CFL’s/LED’s. This assumes that your CFL/LED’s can’t dim, and sends a signal to the receiver to not allow dimming. Once this is set, it must be reset from a remote that supports this or your lights will never dim. So dumb! I wonder if something with that setting is wonky in your receiver.

Have you tested the receiver without the fan connected at all to make sure you have voltage on the output sides?

I have not, I was a little hesitant taking my multimeter to an AC load. I realize it’s not a huge deal I just had never done it and was a bit worried about doing it the first time alone with no one else around should I zap myself.

Thanks for the tip regarding the setting for incandescent versus CFL/LED. The bulbs in my fan are CFL, so perhaps that’s why they weren’t coming on? I wonder if there is a way to change that setting via ST with the custom device handler?

Either way, I will be testing with the remote tonight as well as with the mutlimeter and will report back. If it’s something as simple as that CFL/LED switch I am likely going to bang my head on the wall afterwards.

Test on the switch first to make sure you dont do something wrong and fall off a ladder :slight_smile:

As long as you set the meter to ac and voltage above 120v you will be fine, And A/C does not care which way you hook up the meter wires to the test wires, there is no polarity. A/C alternating current ±±±± 60 times a second, DC ±

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Okay, now I am getting somewhere! Remote was not in stock but I found low voltage on both fan and light. I did the reset procedure, lights flashed, still can’t get the device to show up in ST when adding though. Hmmm.

Sucess! Took several tries but I finally got it reset and paired and it is working now! My god what a pain in the ass without the remote.

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Woot! Consider a Peanut outlet as a Zigbee repeater if you don’t have any other Zigbee devices.

Yeah I ended up moving my hub upstairs to pair it. I was looking at the peanuts earlier, they seemed like the cheapest zigbee powered device that could repeat. I may grab some. I have some Osram bulbs but they have repeating issues on ST. Thanks everyone for your help.

Anyone with CFL bulbs having issues just put a regular bulb in for testing and setup.

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Thought I’d share my little project I completed. I bought the Remotec ZRC-90US to control this and used the label printer at work to make button labels, which I clear coated. Also did some programming with core to allow the power button to save the state if the light or fan is on and restore the state, and programmed the timmer button to toggle between 2 hour, 4 hour and off. I had issues with the Hampton bay in wall controller. It would stop controlling the fan after a few days requiring a battery pull to fix. Replaced it with a second one, with same results. So this will now be mounted on a blank gang box cover on the wall. Can share more details if anyone would like.

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That’s awesome! I’m not joking, how much would you charge if you’re willing to make one? :slight_smile:

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I posted more info here, as well as the files for the images. It would be very easy to do yourself.

Not sure folks on this thread have seen this, but there’s a “whole home” (up to 6 fans) solution that is available via the Bond Home hub (or is it a bridge? :slight_smile: ) for $99.

Currently has Alexa and GH integration, IFTT support, and SmartThings integration is coming “soon” (Q1 2018 appears to be the target according to Bond team statements).

I have it controlling six fans (Hampton Bay and Hunter) in my home via IFTT & Webhook commands from webCore pistons, you can also use the Bond app and as noted Alexa voice control allows on/off, speed, light, etc. Google Home and IFTT control is currently limited to on/off, no speed control access (coming later). Has been very reliable, even using IFTT.

Anyway, worth a look - $99 for all your fans vs. $50 per fan, no rewiring, and Bond is working on State remote control support and IR control support, and controlling other devices as well.

Note: As @bradlee_s brings up below (thanks) this system can not provide active status monitoring…since the fans controlled are “dumb” (no Zwave or Zigbee communication) there is no reporting back from fans on current on/off or speed, etc., status. Using this approach gives fan control, but you won’t know the actual status of your fan unless you have line of site. (Family member could use the original remote to change settings, could turn off at wall if there is a switch, etc.) You can create a “virtual status.” Right now I’m setting the state of a Google Switch I created for each fan to match the on/off commands sent to the fan by my webCore pistons. That way I can see the current “virtual” fan status in my Things list. But it’s not reported from the fan, just a record of the last command I sent to it.

it’s an intriguing product for sure, but this zigbee fan controller works with ST right now.

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