Sure…but if you have four or five fans w/the Zigbee controller you’re out $200 to $250 bucks along w/having to rewire each fan (which admittedly is sometimes fun 
).
Just wanted folks to know about this option - awareness = better outcomes for all, since each of us have different timelines, needs, inclinations, etc.
Bond would be a great option for someone that has no intention of using any sort of smart hub. I use a similar product to control dumb rf outlets (Hook). Both have the same limitations, in that neither would ever be capable of reporting current status of their controlled devices. For some, that might be fine. For others, that’s the reason they purchased SmartThings; to have “smart” control.
@bradlee_s - I’m not sure you understand the current state.
I’m using the Bond Home bridge right now to control all my fans through my SmartThings hub and webCore pistons via IFTT integration - the user experience for my family is no different than if the Bond had direct ST integration, but I have to do more work in the background to hook it up via IFTT, obviously.
Currently the Bond Home bridge supports:
So as noted, I control mine via IFTT now, as well as via voice (“Hey, Google, turn off the family room fan” or “Alexa…etc.”). When direct SmartThings integration is enabled I will switch over to using direct ST control, of course. I understand fully that ST integration is still in the “promise-ware” state, but I’m pretty confident based on Bond developer statements that they are going to deliver. If not, I’ll be OK w/IFTT, certainly comparing $99 for Bond vs. $300 for controlling my six fans w/the approach on this thread. But that’s just me.
Hope that is clearer…I don’t want to clutter up this thread so I’ll avoid replying to further here on this, and suggest further questions/comments be posted to the Bond thread I posted above. Apologies to others on this thread for the short-term hijack.
I bought 3 of thise zigbee fan remotes through manually calling KoF. First one got fried after a week. 2nd never would pair despite hours going through both switch and breaker induced reset methods, and yeah I read all the forums with different techniques. The third one I installed worked fine for about 4 months but stopped responding to either SmartThings or its remote, didn’t appear fried like first but not sure. Could very well be power surges as rural location and I’ve lost equipment to lightning strikes before…Ultimately I went with bond and standard rf remotes. I’ve been pretty happy with it, though do hope speed of integrations increases…
So yeah these are cool but bond is pretty neat as well. Also like that I can use bond with a DC motor fan with integrated receiver, wasn’t able to do that with the receiver replacement or GE fan switches, kinda nice.
No, this is awesome. I’m going to start following that thread too since I never heard of this. I can’t think of how many times I must have Googled “Z-wave fan control” and not find anything much – too bad they don’t have some related search matching – so I am so glad you posted this. I absolutely love the thing – the only thing I wish it had was some sort of IR device that you could put on or near those devices (think IR Blaster from the good old VCR days) but since I don’t have any IR-controlled fans I’m OK with that.
I think this is a good solution for legacy devices in general or devices that you don’t want to replace. For me, the Hampton Bay ZigBee controller was a non-starter because (as I posted back in December), the expensive (ugh) fan I have (Hunter Sophia) uses capacitive control and it’s not compatible with that. Plus all the annoyances of the thing being continuously out of stock, people having issues with the thing frying and/or not working correctly or being intermittent, plus, after all, it too isn’t a supported ST device.
I have three fans, none of which will work with the Hampton Bay device: the Sophia one (capacitive speed control) and two Hampton bay fans that have an up light and a down light. So, I’m excited to maybe potentially solve my problem.
I’ll be interested to read on the other thread about what you’re doing about getting status like @bradlee_s mentions so you can do more than turn it on/off ad hoc.
I understand how your device works. I think you misunderstood my concern.
Bond controls dumb devices. You cannot poll status of dumb devices. You can only guess. You send a command and have no way of verifying whether or not the device received it.
Like I said, this is a great solution for people that don’t care about true “smart” control.
Got it, thanks, that was clear.
Yes - that is an inherent gap in this system. In my case I’ve removed all the original fan remotes so the family only has access to ST Minimotes for fan control, so they are unlikely to get the fans out of sync w/any “virtual status” options that I enable. 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. That way I can see the current “virtual” fan status in my Things list. But it’s not status reported from the fan, just a record of the last command I sent to it, and if the command doesn’t get there and I don’t have line of site I won’t know. Since all of our fan use is when we are sitting under or near it that’s not a big issue for me.
Thanks for confirming your issue - I didn’t state that explicitly in my summary, and important to bring out.
I have three fans all are controlled from a single gang box light and fan dimmer combo switch. I was hoping to get to the bottom of the thread to find a smart fan/light combo switch. I see the remote but seems like a hassle. Has nothing better come out yet? I do have a wink2 hub but this route seems like a lot of work.
You won’t find quality smart combo switches. The components are just too large. Hopefully smaller components get produced/integrated some day.
If you only want to turn them on/off, perhaps a good dual relay is your best bet. I wouldn’t try using a single smart fan controller on multiple fans as the draw is probably too high.
If you want dedicated smart control of each, you would need to either put in a larger box to house multiple devices, or add separate receivers in each canopy. If you have the room, a larger box is the best option. If not, go with 3 MR101Z receivers.
In my situation, I also had combo switches everywhere. In the bedrooms, I didn’t have space to put in an extra control. I used the MR101Z to control the fan and used a GE smart dimmer at the wall to control the lights (capping off the receiver’s light wire at the fan). I used SmartLighting to trigger the dimmer if the remote was used to turn the lights on. I also added double tap button routines at the dimmer to turn the fan on and off.
In the end, I have a single gang switch at the wall that acts as a combo switch!
you could also use 3 of the fan/light combo receivers, one in each fan canopy, all set to the same house code and use one remote to turn them all on/off or use the app to control them individually
In regards to Bond I found it less than perfect and the lack of ST integration was annoying. I don’t consider IFTTT a good solution. Relying on two cloud smart home products to always work together reliably is asking for trouble as it is, let alone three. IFTTT can also be very laggy.
For the past several weeks my office fan has worked great with this receiver but that was while my ST hub was temporarily relocated to the office. After I moved my ST hub back downstairs, my office fan receiver is no longer working. This really shouldn’t be a zigbee signal issue either as I have a smart bulb even farther away than this receiver is and it still works fine.
I also installed my second receiver today and am struggling with it as well. I got it to successfully reset once, then it paired in ST. It worked in ST for a bit, then I killed power at the wall and closed up my canopy. Now it no longer responds to ST. I’ve deleted it from ST and tried to repair it probably a dozen times sense then and I simply cannot the lights to flash again to indicate a reset. 5x 3 secs on 3 secs off, 5x 5 secs on 5 secs off, used a stopwatch. You name it.
I am happy with how well these tend to work once they are working, but they damn sure are inconsistent the second they drop off the zigbee network even for a little bit.
These receivers have notoriously bad antennas, and consequently terrible Zigbee reception. Adding a repeater nearby, such as the very inexpensive Peanut outlet, solves this problem.
Once paired, there’s no need to reset if it drops off. Just cut power off and on once.
I have 3 of the Hampton Bay fan receivers and I know from experience that they really need a strong mesh to work reliably. The one installed in the guest bedroom required a repeater be installed just outside the bedroom with another repeater inside the bedroom to work reliably. These repeaters [Iris Wall Plugs] are less than 6 feet from each other and if I remove ether repeater the fan will drop off-line. I too have other zigbee devices further out from the hub that have always worked fine without the additional repeaters.
Also, be sure your antenna is outside of the canopy and not pinched. I clipped a small piece for the wires to pass through.
This is good advice, but I would also suggest trying with the antenna in the canopy before making the cut. I have two fans with the antenna in the canopy that work just fine. I have a zigbee repeater in the same room. So it is possible to leave the antenna inside depending on your environment.
Noted on the antennas. I made sure and placed my antennas outside the canopies and even took someone else’s advice in this thread and cushioned the wire with half a grommet to prevent cutting into the wire and shorting anything. I have went ahead and ordered a peanut to test with that should be here mid-week. That said, I have moved my ST hub back to the same spot where it worked before in my office, maybe 8 feet line of site from the fan controllers antenna and it’s still completely unresponsive. I also still cannot for the life of me get the bedroom fan to reset and blink again to indicate pairing mode. Is it possible once it is reset and in pairing mode it will not do the blink again before it’s paired? Meaning maybe it is still stuck in pairing mode it just can’t reach my hub? I may try putting the hub under the fan in the bedroom today via a really long Ethernet cable as another test. I am also slightly afraid of removing my office fan from ST that I may never get it added again like the bedroom fan.
Agree - I like to minimize the number of moving parts in my automations. My response delay using IFTT w/Bond is about 2-3 seconds, which is fine for me, and it has been 100% reliable over the past week or so since I set it up.
Bond SmartThings integration is coming, which will remove the need to use IFTT. However, the Bond approach will not be able to provide the two-way communication between fans and ST that this Zigbee controller provides.
I’ve found that the receiver will not blink if it is already reset. Make sure to fully cut the power before trying to pair. Click to add a new thing, then turn the power back on to the fan.
Someone else had mentioned that their antenna was very poorly soldered to the board. They couldn’t pair it either (after it initially would). Opened it up and found the antenna had become disconnected. A quick solder job fixed that. Of course this would be a last resort. But yours might be in the same boat.
No amount of powering off and back on my office fan brought it back to ST. I ran the reset procedure on it, it repaired, and actually picked up as the same device without removal. This however created problems. One issue was duplicate child devices, which is easily resolved. The other was the fan device itself, while could send commands just fine, would not receive confirmation of commands or status back. Deleting both parents and child devices from ST and repairing resolved this issue.
For my bedroom fan, I used an extra long Ethernet cable and placed my ST hub right under the fan and turns out it was in fact already reset (explains my trouble doing the reset) and once I clicked add a thing it instantly paired up.
I really am astonished at how horrible the Zigbee antenna is on these things. Nevertheless, if a few $20 Peanut plugs scattered around the home solve the problem then I am fine with it.
Once these are working I am much more happy with these than the Bond. The lack of status reporting in Bond is a big turn off for me, not to mention the hacky at best ST integration, which I am sure will be resolved, but nevertheless I am sticking with these controllers and will be ordering a few more for my remaining fans.
Glad you were able to get it working! Since I added the Peanut, my fans have been rock solid.
