Bedroom ceiling fan recommendations (UK)

Hi all, climate change seems to be causing at least one really hot spell (30+ degrees C) every summer in London nowadays. I’m getting sick of sleeping with a cheap fan that sounds like a prop plane. I’m thinking of installing a ceiling fan in our bedroom, but I’d like to be able to automate it using HA (like turning it on/off remotely, adjusting the speed for temp, etc.). I’m looking at fans like:

However, the mention of the “Tuya app” is putting me off. I had a bunch of Tuya devices and got rid of them because of the hassles with relying on an unreliable cloud. My home is now mostly local with Zigbee (albeit through the Philips Hue hub), Z-Wave and Wifi.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Caveats: I’m not an electrician and will definitely have to hire someone to install it for me, so hand-crafted ESP things that I’ll need a few goes at are probably out of the question. It’s in a bedroom too, so will need to be pretty quiet. Someone said DC motors are best for that? Any product recommendations?

Hey there Eamonn, I’m in the same predicament. I want to get a ceiling fan that I can link to Home Assistant to control when it comes on / off based on the room temperature from a 3rd party thermostat.
But I’m unable to determine which fan to get…is anything that can be paired with Tuya going to be able to be controlled by Home Assistant?
I’ve found lots of youtube videos but all based on US products that won’t work on our UK voltage.

If you find a solution please let me know.
thanks.

I’m interested in this too. Sadly I can’t offer any solution at the moment.

I’m hoping if we post about it enough, it’ll become a highly reviewed topic, that’ll shoot up the list to the top, where someone smarter than I picks up on it & resolves it. This is my idea anyway haha.

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I have a dumb fan at the moment. I want to be ready with a smart alternative in case it stops working and gives me an excuse to replace it.

I might just go for it and see how far I get. It looks like the Tuya Home Assistant integration has moved on a bit, since I last tried it, and maybe it’s better? If I fail, I’ll still have a better fan – one that works with a remote control, at least.

But I better check that the remote control doesn’t rely on the internet. I’d hate to be unable to turn on the fan on some sultry summer night because Virgin Media is having a bad day…

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Keep us posted on how it goes; pros & cons.

Thanks.

Hi all,

Just to update anyone who is interested: I purchased and installed a Mantra ceiling fan with light (this particular one) about a month ago.

Of course, now that I’ve done this, we haven’t had any really hot weather. We’ve had a few warm-ish nights, however, and it has performed admirably. Modern fans aren’t like the Twin Peaks/Casablanca slow, loud whirling blades. It’s like a really good, quality fan, just on the ceiling. This particular model puts out a lot of wind – we’ve only ever had it up as high as 50% – and it is pretty quiet. I wouldn’t call it silent (except maybe at very low percentages), but it doesn’t disturb our sleep at all.

The spouse approves.

A couple of notes:

  • The fan uses the Tuya app (in addition to an ordinary infrared remote). After going through all of the faff to set up the Tuya integration, the fan shows up in Home Assistant. I can turn it on/off, set the percentage and turn the light on and off.
  • I discovered that Home Assistant doesn’t let me directly set the direction (forward/reverse), even though I can do that in the Tuya app. I could get around that by setting up scenes in the app, reloading the integration, and then control the scenes from HA. I use Node Red instead of Yaml, but it seems to be easily controllable from either.
  • I’ve set up an automation, part of a larger “good night” routine, that turns on the fan when we are heading to bed. The speed varies, depending on the temperature outside, and it goes in reverse (to circulate heat) when it is cold outside. That latter, obviously, hasn’t triggered yet, but I’ve tested it.

I don’t like Tuya and I’ve noticed it hasn’t improved much since the last time I tried it, with devices going unavailable occasionally. This was more of an issue with a bunch of smart plugs than it is with the fan, which I only have to toggle on or off once a day, but it’s still annoying.

I’m going to try Tuya Local at some point, to see if that’s better.

Addendum: I wrote this and thought “no time like the present” and tried Tuya Local. Not only does it work great, but also gained access to the direction function that was only available via the Tuya app previously. That eliminates the one big “Con” of this light, so I’m quite happy.

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