Help needed: Hunter SIMPLEconnect fan on with HVAC fan

Configuration
,
1

I am trying to create an automation to turn on a ceiling fan whenever the HVAC (nest) turns on and set the direction of the fan to match the mode of the HVAC. In other words, when HVAC is in cool mode, set the fan rotation to forward and turn the fan on. When HVAC is heat mode, set the rotation to reverse and turn the fan on. But I cannot get this working…can someone shed some light on this?

The complete automation is here:

- id: '1632679342958'
  alias: Fan on with HVAC
  description: Run fan (if not running already) when HVAC comes on...and in the proper
    direction.
  trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.hallway_thermostat_fan
    to: 'on'
  condition:
  - condition: device
    device_id: d357b590254c124fd2f67105b6e248a4
    domain: fan
    entity_id: fan.simpleconnect_fan_b19217
    type: is_off
  action:
  - service: fan.set_direction
    data_template: >
      {% if is_state("climate.hallway", "cool") -%}
      direction: forward
      {%- else %}
      direction: reverse
      {%- endif %}
    target:
      entity_id: fan.simpleconnect_fan_b19217
  - device_id: d357b590254c124fd2f67105b6e248a4
    domain: fan
    entity_id: fan.simpleconnect_fan_b19217
    type: turn_on
  mode: single

If I hardcode the data part of the fan.set_direction, the automation works fine.

Anyone have any thoughts?

2

Well, this is sort of anti-climatic, but I just used the Visual Editor in HA and used a Choose action to make this work. Sorry for the noise.

3

Cool idea for an automation. Just curious - Did you use the HomeKit Controller integration, or were you able to directly add the fan to HA?

4

Also curious about this too @meisner as I’m looking at buying some!

5

I have had a couple of them for several years. The fans are work well. They are quiet and move a lot of air. Although they both periodically decide they no longer want to be connected to wifi. I have to cut the power at the breaker, and when the come back up they are fine again.

The native Hunter app looks and works like it was created by a 4 year old. It is embarrassing. But the HomeKit/HomeKit Controller integration is pretty good.

6

I used the HomeKit app on an iPhone to set the wifi credentials on the Hunter fan. Now it’s on the network and HA communicates with it via the HomeKit integration.

7

Agreed! I haven’t seen the connection drop on wifi (yet?), but the manufacturer’s app was horrible!!

I’ve been running this for a couple of months now and have had 0 problems.

Sorry for not replying sooner to this thread; I never got notifications there was any activity here!!

1 Like
8

OK, so I have now started having odd issues. I lost the wifi connection to the fan and after resetting, the best I get is I can see state changes (the light was turned on or off and the fan is running or not), but HA cannot control it.

Why is this sort of thing so difficult? It’s not hard to stay connected to wifi and listen for commands!!

9

OK, I had to go thru quite the process.

To fix this I had to;

1. Cycle power via the breaker
2. Remove the integration in HA
3. Using SIMPLEconnect on an Android phone, choose Add Device
   a. Put fan in pairing mode using the remote (Hold reset button until fan beeps)
   b. Scan or manually enter the pairing code (mine was inside the remote, but wasn't scannable)
   c. Choose wifi network and enter password
   d. It should then come back as connected. At this point, the app never stopped spinning.
4. Go into HA and add the discovered HomeKit device.
10

When adding your fan to the homekit controller, do you get “invalid flow specified”? I’m getting this when I add mine. Afterwards, HA can control the fan, but it becomes unavailable after about 15 minutes. The only way to get it back is to power cycle the fan, but it will become unavailable again after 15 mins.

Is this behavior you’ve seen? I’m running home assistant 2022.2.6.

11

I just did a test with the homekit user. He is off-site now and I asked him to turn off the fan in homekit and I was able to confirm it turned off.
I just did a test via Alexa and the fan turned off

I am on the newest version of HA
I do NOT have the fan routed through HA (I could never see it long enough to grab it)
I recall a couple weird messages in the Homekit setups and I’m pretty sure invalid flow specified was one of them
I have simple connect routed to Alexa and the simple connect app only configured via homekit for this 1 device. Homekit is the only way this fan can access the internet; there are no wifi settings.
Homekit has a few other devices that HA can easily see.

Now I’m less sure that this is a Homekit issue because it’s able to send commands on two fronts (Remote homekit control and remote amazon control through simple commands which is ONLY configured to the internet through homekit).

For these reasons, I’m thinking now maybe it’s a HA issue. Especially considering there are obviously people who got this working and attested to it being the most acceptable setup available for this device.

12

I am definitely seeing my SIMPLEconnect fan connected to my wifi. So no matter if it’s connected via HomeAssistant, it is on wifi. If the fan is paired with the HomeKit app, it cannot be connected to via HA. So there may be some issue with your fan being connected to Alexa that is interferring with HA.

The fact that these fans simply disconnect from the “network” is kind of ridiculous. It makes the device unreliable. I now just use the circuit breaker to reset my fan every so often.

13

Yeah, the fan stays connected to my network too, it’s just that it becomes unavailable to the homekit controller in HA. I monitored my network for running mDNS services and noticed that the simpleconnect fan under hap._tcp disappears at the same time it becomes unavailable to HA. It seems like the fan stops running the service after some time (about 15 minutes after joining the network).

14

…and that’s fine, but it seems as though the fan doesn’t reconnect sometimes. That’s when it gets frustrating.