Z-Wave Fan Control: Leviton RF+

I’m looking for a way to control my ceiling fan with SmartThings. The only Z-Wave device I can find is the Leviton VRF01-1LX. Has anyone tried it? It’s not on the list of supported things but thought someone might have been daring enough to try it.

http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ProductDetail.jsp?partnumber=VRF01-1LX&section=44142&minisite=10251

For 117 bucks I’d rather just leave the fan on year round :slight_smile:

Yeah, it’s not cheap, but I’m hoping to do more with it than just act as an alternate remote.

I have a two-story house with only one thermostat, so I’ve been looking for a way to vary the speed of ceiling fans upstairs as a way to better control my HVAC and electricity costs by efficiently circulating the air as needed. (I have a bad habit of leaving on fans in unoccupied rooms and wasting electricity)

I’m experimenting with environmental-sensing motes as a way to trigger the ceiling fans - putting them on the highest speed setting is usually too much when you are in the room, but if I can do it when the room is empty, I’m hoping to be able to bring the room closer to temperature in the hours leading up to their use at night without freezing out the rest of the house in the process.

I’m also looking to use motion sensing to control fans in unoccupied rooms at night to pull up the cold air from downstairs without creating a wind storm in the master bedroom.

I am working on an arduino based controller that controls my Fan’s RF controller(pushes the buttons basically). I have that circuit working. But I need a SmartShield so until the store opens I am dead in the water. The plan hopefully will be to eventually make it all work with a Spark when those come out http://www.sparkdevices.com/ since they are very small and will be supported by smartthings.

With this Vizia Switch just note that like Z-Wave Relay switches I’m pretty sure it requires 4-wires (Neutral, Hot, Ground, Load) so if you are in an older house with only 3 wires in the gang box, it wont work.

jason3fc: That’s really cool - are you using some kind of linear actuator/solenoid to push the buttons?

I had to do something similar to make my Z-Wave relay work with my garage door opener. It turns out my door control is digital, so simply connecting the remote wires together wouldn’t operate the door. I had to hack one one of the remotes; I used conductive glue to close the button circuit on the PCB and used the relay to close a battery circuit I put in place of the coin battery. It’s ugly, but works.

Scott - Actually maybe I was too literal :slight_smile: - I have it wired to where the switches are. and transistors and relays to act as a switch and wired to inputs on the Arduino so I can control each button individually.

Come on SmartThings, open that store! I need some shields.