Home Decorators Ceiling Fan/Light Controller MR101Z - First Impressions

@stephack Both mine are working but I just got home so I don’t know if it wasn’t working earlier. When you say not working meaning that mobile doesn’t respond or what? This just smells bad of a ST system issue because nothing changed on our end.

It is on page 15 of the manual here. http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pdfImages/70/70e1d7f3-166f-4ab9-8b86-8ed0f027d038.pdf

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Thank you.
I found it and did the reset. But just to add to the confusion, it did work. Worked as expected with everything. But did so for about 1 hours and then was unresponsive through Smartthings again.
I did a reset again and now it’s been working fine for about 2 hours.

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Normally when I loose connectivity, I would just turn off the wall switch for 10 seconds and communication would resume. This time I had to reboot my hub. Who knows the cause with ST anymore :disappointed:

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Paul, just out of curiosity, how far away is the Hub and did you mount the white zigbee antenna outside the fan cowl on the side towards the Hub? I am just pulling at straws here but I wonder if it could be a poor zigbee mesh connection? Which makes sense until I read that there are multiple users having the same issue at the same time? :dizzy_face:

Hey Dale,

hub is fairly close and yes the zigbee antenna is out of the cowl. The RF antenna is in the cowl, but that doesn’t seem to affect the wall switch.

It is working now and as been for more than 6 hours. Nothing else on my system was down. And when it works, it works flawlessly.

OK, here is a bit of an update. The controller stopped working all of a sudden. I can’t get the reset procedure listed to work.
So I removed the device from Smartthings as I did a few times before and now I just can’t pair it. I think I just have a bad unit. I have another one on the way, so I might be able to investigate further.

By the way, the wall control still works. Everything Smartthings doesn’t.

@PaulChampagne Thanks for the update.

Wow, it’s getting very quiet around here.

I think I found the source of my problem. Unfortunately, it appears to be the nice 4 speed thermostat from dalec.

I was able to reconnect my controller to Smartthings and it did work well for days. I then started adding components to it.
When I created a thermostat with Dale’s app, the app sent a off command to the fan and that just killed it. From that point on, it was unresponsive to anything Smarttings.

I removed the app and shut down the controller from it’s remote. After a few minutes, everything was working again and I could control the fan from the Smartthings app.

I tried a couple of times and every time I add the 4 speed thermostat app, the controller stops working.

No that is fortunately ! Thanks for seeing that Paul, if you don’t mind add the app again and turn on Live Logging in the IDE. Then select the Thermostat app so you can capture the error log for me. Also let me know what version of the app you have loaded. You can PM me the logs in your reply

Hey Dale,

I haven’t been able to reconnect the controller to Smartthings since my last test with your app. I will do as you ask as soon as I can.

Ok, fan controller is back on Smartthings and everything is working as it should.

I created a new thermostat with your app and turned live logging on.
Of course, right now it’s all working fine. I will keep live logging on and see what happens

Thanks for doing this. I am hoping it uncovers something for to troubleshoot the problem.

Hey Dale,

how do I go about sending you the log?

Weirdly enough, it’s all working fine still. But around 4:00 AM you can see that the app send an “off” command to the fan controller, randomly every 4-6 minutes. The temp was way below the setpoint, so there was no reason for that. The controller kept going this time, but I think this is what happened the other times.

I don’t think that is it but send it through Private Messaging. I’ll send one to you that you can reply to.

so I was able to install the 2 controllers I received. The first install went beautifully, other than the canopy in my daughters room being extremely small. I had to do a little bit of cramming, but in the end everything works well.
In my master bedroom I have a flush-mount Hunter so I had to do the whole tear-down thing, which I had never done before. Got the MR101z installed and had some funky pulsing activity when I flipped the power back on. After investigating, I realized i switched the fan and light connections (had a black/white striped wire that I didn’t realize was the light) and corrected my mistake. I then had NO activity and investigated some more. Under the thick layer of dust I found a sticker that listed the fans power output at 1.83Amps. As it turns out the MR101z, as well as the non-zigbee receiver included with the Hampton Bay wall control are only rated for 1.25Amps.
So my working theory now is one of 2 things happened.

  1. when i swapped the light and fan connections I burnt out the receiver (going back to original hookup fan works perfectly again). This would be a bummer and a waste of money.
  2. when presented with a load that draws over the max amperage, the receivers does nothing. This would also be a bummer, but I can always use the controller in one of two other rooms.
    Anyone else run into this problem?

Paul, the controller is configured to send a status report every 5 minutes. I will change the wording in the latest version so it is less confusing.

These status reports are sent under 2 circumstances.

  1. Any setting on the fan is changed (via remote or smartapp). In this case it acts as a confirmation that the change occured succssfully.
  2. Automatically every 5 minutes. In this case it acts as a poll to ensure the smartapp is displaying the correct status.

It simply shows the current state of the fan and does NOT represent a command being sent to the fan. Hopefully the logs make a little more sense now.

Thank you Stephan,

I do understand that part of it.

I’m just having a hard time with that controller. It keeps dropping off of Smartthings for no apparent reasons.
When it works, it works really well.
I had it running perfectly for more than a week and just last night it just stopped for no reason that I can find.
Nothing else on my system is behaving out of the ordinary.
I first thought it was Dales thermostat that was the problem, but that was working perfectly all last week.
And it’s a real pain to get it to reconnect. I have never been able to reset it the way it’s described in the manual.

If it won’t reset, it may be a defective unit. That’s pretty much the most basic function it has. So if that doesn’t work, lots of other things could be wonky. :disappointed_relieved:

Have you all been able to reset the controller following those instructions?

Maybe I’m doing it wrong:

I use the remote and use the top power button. Turn on for 3 seconds, turn off for 3 seconds. Repeat 5 times.
Light should blink. But in my case, it never does.

I do have another I bought as a backup, but it arrived loose in a box without as much as a wrapper, so I’m not optimistic about that one.

You have to cycle 120v power at the switch/breaker. Can’t use the remote.