Anyone have experience with this smartlife wifi fan controller? It’s only $25. I imagine integration would be similar to other smartlife wifi devices, either through Alexa or ifttt as “man in the middle”, or possibly the smartlife integration (which has its issues of course).
I have these throughout my house. I replaced all my hunter boxes with these.
They are OKAY.
Through Alexa, the integration works with little hassle and the voice commands are easy.
To date, I haven’t been able to properly integrate them to Smartthings. Fans aren’t one of the certified devices for the smartthings/smartlife integration but it will allow you to add the ‘devices’ into smartthings.
‘Devices’ is in quotes because smartlife does this weird thing where it passes the devices through as scenes. It does this in Alexa too but they’ve added work around this to where it functions like a device. The problem with this approach is because they don’t get passed through to Smartthings properly, it will perpetually state the ‘device’ is offline. It does this in Alexa too but again, they’ve figured out a way around this to where it still works. In Smartthings, if your device is ‘offline’ you can’t send commands to it through webcore automations. More work would need to be done between smartlife and smartthings to make this work properly. I created a bunch of virtual switches and Alexa does the heavy lifting with the fans. Its the only integration I handle in Amazon because I’ve not yet found a better alternative.
The devices themselves are reliable. I never use the remotes.
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I’m using Sonoff iFan03 flashed with Tasmota firmware and Tasmota (Connect) SmartApp. It works well.
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Thanks I’m glad to hear its working and devices are reliable. I know the smartlife integration to smarthings isn’t great and definitely needs work. I followed the advice in the thread linked below and got integration with one of my smartlife bulbs. Clunky but works. I’d imagine it works with the fan too. I ordered one so I guess I’ll find out and report back.
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That looks awesome, but we use the remote a lot and that remote looks way too complicated for my wife and kids and not at all intuitive.
I liked the smartlife remote because it’s identical to what was there. I have five ceiling fans. Three are controlled by the new Inovelli fan light control, Smart Fan / Light Switch – Inovelli which is awesome, but the switch must be controlled from the switch box. Problem with one fan is the box is behind the couch and I need a remote for “dumb” control. Right now it uses a broadlink rm pro, but the rm pro doesn’t know the status and if the light is on, an on command shuts it off. I think this smartlife device will solve this annoying problem where an on automation doesn’t turn the already on light off.
Just installed this wifi fan control and thanks to the advice of @Paul_Oliver from the link above, I was able to get it working. Integration from Smarthings to Smartlife is clunky to say the least. The devices themselves do not come over, but when you create “tap-to-run” actions (Smartlife equivalent of “scenes”), those come over. I had to create “tap-to-run” actions for light on, light off, and all the fan settings. Those then show up as “offline” devices in Smartthings with the TUYA integration. Then virtual switches are needed to control those “offline” devices. Then webcore or smartlighting can be used to “toggle” the Tuya offline devices that are created by the tap-to-run actions.
What a pain but it’s working. I don’t know if I would recommend this switch due to its overly complex setup, but it does work and is a great price. Alexa integration was simple and easy, so if people want basic use, that would be fine. This switch still in no way competes with the Inovelli fan/light switch that can do so much more. Also, this integration doesn’t report the status of the light to Smarthings - ie Smartthings doesn’t know if the light was turned on or not by the remote. However, it is a massive improvement from my Broadlink RMpro with a dumb remote, where an “on” automation shut the light off if it was already on. At least an “on command” to this device, if it is still on, just leaves the light on.
Remote is simple to use on this Smartlife fan, so wife is happy with that, but the Sonoff that @hongtat mentioned that can be flashed with Tasmota is probably a much better option if the remote for that works for you.
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Glad it worked for you. Now we are even, I used your Voice Monkey idea to replace Echo Speaks.
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Nice one gentlemen. This’ll work until they (maybe) get it working natively.