Newbie Question: Controlling lights in a ceiling fan with no wall switch

#1

I am new to home automation, and still have quite a bit of learning to do on the topic. I have recently purchased a house that I’m making my project (Light switches, window/door sensors, motion, and surveillance) once the contractors finish painting and flooring.

My question is about a ceiling fan with no wall switch. It has 3 bulbs in the fan that I want to be able to dim through SmartThings. I am sure this can be accomplished with several brands of smartbulb, but as I said I’m a newbie at this and thought I would ask the community what they felt would be the best brand bulb for accomplishing this.

Thanks for your help with this.

(Ricky) #2

Just squeeze any ST compatible dimmer in the junction box or above the ceiling and you are good to go.

(Ricky) #3

Don’t use smart bulbs since they would have a different address, it doesn’t make sense

(Benji) #4

You can us smart bulbs, this is what I used to do buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I don’t recommend it, in fact, I don’t recommend smart bulbs at all, though that’s mostly just me.

I wasn’t sure if you wanted to control the fan as well? If you do, that makes things a little more complicated. If you only have one wall switch that turns on/off the fan and the lights then you can’t use a smart switch there… That being said, depending on how new your house is and/or how nice the electrician was when building it, they may have prewired for a second switch in the electrical box, they just joined them together with one switch as it was in most of mine.

If that’s the case, depending on how confident you are in knowing what you are doing with mains electricity (READ: If you aren’t, then don’t at all, death can occur), then you could change the electrical box and put in two switches.

If you just care about the bulbs and not the fan (but it’s all turned on/off from the same switch) then you could do as @Ricky_Gonzalez said and squeeze in a smart/micro dimmer/switch into the fan hood for the lights, just keep in mind, if the main switch is off, the lights still won’t work at all.

#5

Thanks for the help guys, but I think I’m going to be destined to install a wall switch to achieve my goal. I don’t need fan control, as I like it running while I sleep, but I do want to control the lights by phone. Oh well, at the end of the day I’ll be better off doing that instead of a lazy man shortcut.

(Ray) #6

I would put a dual in wall relay module and be able to control both with your phone. Monoprice, emereave, vision all make dual relay module.