I’m wondering if anyone knows of a way (besides HomeKit) to connect to Hunter SIMPLEconnect ceiling fans https://www.hunterfan.com/ceiling-fan-smart-home ? They’re wifi, and HomeKit, Alexa, and Google compatible. For iOS they use a really terrible IoT app system based on https://www.aylanetworks.com. I currently have them working with HomeKit (which they are discoverable by), but I’m trying to avoid using HomeKit with Home Assistant as I’ve got a lot of automation in HK, and I’m trying to avoid deleting any of that since it isn’t possible to back that up, and I want to hang onto that until I have everything working correctly using Home Assistant. It was also a tremendous pain to set them up correctly the first time. I did some searching on this without any success. Thanks!
Does this have an IR remote as well as wifi? If so it could be as simple as using IR instead of wifi.
If you want to use via wifi, I think you are going to have to intercept some network traffic and find out how it works.
No IR, only WiFi.
I’ve got WireShark up and running, and I’m filtering traffic by the fan’s MAC address, I can see what looks like HAP multicast traffic, but I don’t see any control traffic, regardless of using HomeKit or Alexa to (successfully) turn the fan/light on and off. Any suggestions? Can you point me to a guide that can help me figure this out? I might just be completely in over my head here.
I was able to get a capture of the traffic after mirroring the port, but, much to my surprise given how terrible their app is, the traffic is TSL protected, any thoughts how to work with this?
I am no expert at all, but hopefully someone cleverer than me will pop along.
I do know there is an android app called packet capture that will reveal ssl tradfic to and from an app running on the same device.
I started playing around a Hunter Fan. I made a proof of concept that already is nicer than the simple connect app. See here. It still connects to Ayla Networks. I want to start with just a nicer app experience and then maybe try to see if I can communicate directly with the fan. Please contact me if you have a Alya based fan and want to help. Even just testing the app with different models would be of interest.
I released my app today on Google Play and Web. It might be useful for anyone who can’t get the buggy Simpleconnect app working. It’s open source. Open an issue via my previous post’s link if you want to collaborate. If there’s enough interest I’d love to try communicating with the fan directly instead of through Alya Networks.
Is there some documentation on the API?
There is https://developer.aylanetworks.com/apibrowser/
Note that this requires going through the Internet to Ayla’s backend and not directly to the fan. It would be ideal if someone could reverse engineer the fan board itself. Alya sells developer boards but it’s a bit pricey for a side project for me.
HASS 0.97.2 actually discovered it via homekit_controller.
I had issues with it not popping up the homekit PIN request but it let me configure it today.
It discovered only the light, but that’s a huge step forward.
I have an open issue for it at https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/issues/26180.
Did you figure out how to control the fan with Home assistant?? Homekit controller only discover the light, but no fan show up on HA.
I had to do some crazy stuff with Smartthings virtual switch and Alexa to get switches for the fan. extremely inelegant solution and frankly doesn’t always work well. Would love it if the homekit_controler solution covered it as the light on/off works consistently.
@bufke This is very cool! Do you think there is a way to create a customer HA integration for it?
Hi,
I am brand new to Home Assistant (and wondering why I didn’t know about this sooner).
I am wondering if anyone has had any luck with the Hunter fan/SimpleConnect App and HA integration.
As mentioned above the App is horrible - and at this time, the Google Connectivity isn’t working.
The only thing I have working for automation is Alexa (on my phone), and that is really limited.
Any help here would be great.
Are there any updates on integrating this with HA? Just bought a Hunter Bayport ceiling fan and would love to have this integrate with HA. I would make an automation turning it off halfway through the night for example.
I have been using HomeKit Controller for my two SIMPLEconnect fans for several months. It works perfectly!
Does anyone know where to pick up a Hunter SimpleConnect in Europe? Seems to be mainly US and very few selling points.
Thanks! Good to hear!
That is great, what is all needed? I have never used homekit before… Are you able to set the fan direction?
Yes, you can control the speed and direction. If you have a SIMPLEconnect fan, then it should have a HomeKit code. It might be hidden in the battery compartment of your remote. You’ll need that code in order to add the device into the HomeKit Controller integration.
Go to: Configuration > Integrations > Add Integration > HomeKit Controller
Your fan should already show up there as a new device. If not, you might need to factory reset the fan. Select the fan and then enter your HomeKit code.