I’m looking for a Z-Wave or Zigbee fan control first, then a wi-fi if that doesn’t bear fruit and finally the Sonoff (which I’m having trouble getting to take new firmware) fan control last.
I’m replacing my Insteon device that fits into the ceiling mount of my fan and lets me control both the light and the fan, so far most of what I’m finding outside of Sonoff or WiFi is on the wall, which won’t work for my needs.
If wi-fi I prefer something that has integration with HA.
Thanks!
I think something like a shell 2.5 would work. I have 19 shelly devices that are directly tied into HA.
Can that handle a variable speed fan plus a light? I had considered doing something similar with two Fibaro relays but they cannot handle variable speed fans.
Not to my knowledge but the dimmer 2 should be able to handle it.
You can’t use a ‘dimmer’ on a fan you must use a ‘fan speed controller’ dimmers can create a fire hazard, overheating trying to ‘dim’ an induction load.
Thanks, I didn’t know that!
Are you looking for ceiling fan + light control with some equivalent of a canopy module… plus some sort of remote so that you can control from the wall?
Most importantly - which part of the world this is??
What do you have today, in terms of wiring, in the wall switch box and from the ceiling box, for your Insteon fan-light control setup???
A couple of photos would help keep the conversation going.
which Sonoff model are you using?
I have two iFan04’s working using ESPHome right now.
It’s the Fan04 but I can’t get it to accept a new ESPHome config, it connects to the FTL board but can’t ever seem to communicate with the device itself.
I believe you need to connect the GPIO0 pin to ground at boot up of the device to put it into flash mode. Then remove the ground after the device fully boots up.
It’s been a while since I did mine but I know for sure that you needed to do that for the older iFan models and I’m pretty sure it’s still necessary on the iFan04 as well.
You do and I have but it doesn’t seem to work, I’m going to take another crack at it. The GPIO is the button on the front, there’s not a separate ground pin like some.
Exactly, a canopy module to control a dimmable light and variable speed fan. It came with a remote in the very beginning but I don’t know that it’s still connected after I put in the Insteon FanLinc, but since I’ve never had cause to use it I don’t recall.
USA
That’s the rub that’s causing the issues. A lot of newer homes wire the fan and light down to a switch, in my case the switch is just the master power but the wiring is in the ceiling, which is why I need a canopy solution. I would fix this but the walls nearby are outside walls so they are insulated and difficult to fish new Romex through.
I think we are in the same boat, @CO_4X4 . Did some extensive research myself also.
And in short, the situation isn’t good at the moment (2023).
There are the Innovelli Red, but not available any more.
Lutron Caseta used to do canopy module, but discontinued also.
And then we have Insteon FanLinc… you know the story.
And then we have sonoff iFan04 - which you don’t like.
Hampton Bay used to offer zigbee based canopy module, which I’m told not reliable and discontinued
What else?
Everything else on the market are either “two wires from the ceiling fan to wall switch box”, which would be painful to run wires if not already in place.
… or RF based, similar to sonoff iFan04, with questionable HA integration… because at least iFan04 comes with ESP chips - not so sure about the others.
I have even thought about using two SwitchBots to do pull chains…
Even if I am willing to swap out the entire fan+light unit with the latest on the market these days, there are still no good option, because (a) they are DC motors these days, and (b) come with ugly remotes and worst of all, (c) the so-called “smart” ones are all proprietary protocol - every single one of them.
Arrrrrrrhh!
So, conclusions?
The most viable options, for me anyways, there are 4:
a) go with iFan04 and make it work.
b) go with dumb generic RF-based canopy modules, and then buy a Bond Bridge, and see if it is possible to control all of those fan+light around the house with one Bond Bridge.
c) do nothing and wait for maybe another year or two
d) bite the bullet and run wires…
(This is clearly both a summary and a rant.)
I’ve come to the same conclusion, either not have my ceiling fan integrated with HA, run wires (unlikely given the limitations) or use the iFan04 either as-is or try again to modify it for ESPHome.
I know there was an issue with the iFan02 (and it might still be an issue with the iFan04) in that there isn’t enough power from the programming module to actually run the chip to flash it. You actually needed to connect it to 120v mains power to flash the chip.
Obviously that wasn’t too safe so I ended up creating a power supply/flashing system that I used for the iFan02 and iFan03. But I can’t remember if I needed it for the iFan04 or not.
I’ve had so many different models and I’ve done the flashing so rarely that I honestly don’t remember what I did last for the iFan04.
There is a dedicated thread for that model from last year (?) that might give you some more info. If you can’t find it let me know and I’ll try to search it down for you.
I got a new FTDI this week and after a few attempts I was finally able to flash the iFan04 to work, but only if I got at it from the bottom rather than the top, I could never get the pins to connect well on the top.
That’s good to hear. Once you finally get them flashed they seem to be fairly robust and reliable. At least speaking from my limited experience with the two that I have.
Did you use ESPHome or Tasmota?
I used ESPHome.
@k8gg - do you happen to recall from your research the options available if you do have the wires needed? (option d)
Then there are many fan control switches and light dimmer switches in different styles you can choose from. ZigBee, z-wave, lutron, wifi, local, cloud, local+cloud, etc.