So I have a typical residential bathroom fan with a humidity sensor built into the fan. The fan is controlled by a standard jasco zwave switch. The fan operates as such. When the switch is powered on the fan is in a humidity sensing mode and will only run when it detects a certain level. Upon toggling the fan off, and back on, it enters always on. To me I’m used to it but I don’t want to be teaching guests about this quirk when they want to run the exhaust fan in the bathroom. Is there anyway to modify the driver for the switch to be able to track the state the fan is in by just showing a mode in the app, and be able to fix it if it goes out of sync. It won’t actually communicate to the fan its just a memory in the app of the last status. And also set it up so that when the switch is turned on it turns off then back on again. If it’s too difficult maybe at least how to make a routine so that if it’s turned on, it automatically turns off after a couple seconds then back on. Any ideas let me know, thanks!
maybe you can put together a “simple” solution with three routines and a virtual switch to save the “state” of the fan, like “always ON mode”.
If i understand correctly:
Routine 1: toggle the virtual switch state OFF/ON every time the zwave switch is “turned ON”.
Routine 2: IF zwave switch is ON (precondition) AND the “always on mode” virtual switch is ON for a certain period of time, turn OFF zwave Switch.
Routine 3: IF zwave switch is OFF (precondition) AND the “always on mode” virtual switch is ON for a certain period of time, turn ON zwave switch.
Something more “refined” maybe can be achieved with the Rules API
I like the idea with the virtual switch and the routines but I don’t think I can do routine 1 where the switch is toggled off and back on within a few seconds after being turned on. And yea I think the Rules API would probably be a good way I just am not familiar enough with the formatting/commands. I can do the logic part just don’t know enough about coding with the rules API.
A question first: what is the time window in seconds for the next toggle to activate the always on mode? It would be useful to know the exact figure, 3 seconds, 5 seconds?
I agree that it’s not worth it to modify a driver for that when the events and actions are already there, the solution would not be generic and the same logic can be implemented with normal routines and virtual switches in the app.
It’s not so simple though, for the full functionaility I’m thinking in three virtual switches:
- One to track if we are in always on mode as suggested before.
- Another to track the time window and know if you’re in the first “on” or not.
- Optional third one to select the behaviour: if one “on” will work as normal or will toggle again. It’s optional because you may already have a mode or virtual switch to track when there are guests and modify other automations.
I have a bathroom fan like this. The time window for the toggle is less than 2 seconds.
Most of these fans can be configured with (hidden) DIP switches.
I’d check if it’s possible to configure the fan to be always on by default and use an external humidity sensor to control it.
That’s what I’m doing here and it works like a charm.
Yea the time window I would say is a couple seconds. And I know I could switch it to always on but I want to use the built in humidity control. I could use humidity sensors from the bedroom but I would prefer the humidity in the bathroom and not having to get another sensor. I’d prefer the tweaking software route than adding extra hardware.