Turn a dumb fan smart - a new path?

Hardware
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Howdy all. I have one of those old-school ceiling fan/light combinations that work with a cord. Cut the power at the switch: everything turns off. Turn on the switch: fan and light turn on (or not, depending on the internal relays).

I opened this thing up and took a literal look at what we got there, and it’s (surprisingly) simple (see picture).

PXL_20240701_145935571
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Basically, it’s a four-gang relay with a single line in (no neutral). It looks like 3 gangs, but there’s an “off” setting, too.

So my idea is: can I replace this little box entirely and insert some kind of four-gang relay? The place where the cord comes out of the casing could get a simple button that cycles through the settings, much like the pulling mechanism does. It would have to be pretty small, and I would want it to be operational in a conventional way, too.

I think I’m looking for a Shelly-style relay, but with 4 outputs (or 3) and, ideally, requiring no neutral wire (though there’s a neutral wire in there, of course, because the light switch can be on, but both the fan and the light can be off) - for example, this thing: Zigbee 3 Gang Wifi Smart Light Switch Relay Module Support 2way Control - Buy Zigbee 3 Gang Switch Module zigbee 3gang 2 Way Switch Module tuya Wifi Relay Switch Module 2 Channel Product on Alibaba.com

Does that look right? Or am I missing something? I’d have to MacGyver a switch somehow, of course, but that seems like the comparatively easier step 2.

Any thoughts? :slight_smile:

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This video should help guide you:

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I have 4 ceiling fans in our (South Florida) home. These are regular Home depot fans with 4 cables each, neutral, line and 2 loads. I installed for each one Zwave Light dimmer and one Jasco Zwave Fan controller. For some I had to cut space for the extra switch in the wall, but that was easy.
I have not seen any Zwave or Zifbee switches that control both light and fans, allowing different light brightness and fan speeds.

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This sounds like all the smarts are in the wall, right? Because if so, that won’t work for me. It’s a simple “light switch” in the wall, as if the fan was only a light.

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Does this fan have speed modes with each pull of the cord? or is it just on and off for both the fan and the light?

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Speed modes. If it was just on/off I’d go with a Shelly mini or something.

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I think a shelly may work with its edge mode where its doing a state change with each toggle action when the fan side is set to it. Someone with experience with them may confirm in that regard.

Nvm, looking it up online edge is just toggle regardless of switch position. ESP home it is then.

i.e

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The variable speed motor is the biggest issue to deal with. For me I just get the canopy units for Z-Wave or Zigbee that do it (there’s also the iFan04 from Sonoff that’s ESP based). While you can recreate the wheel, you don’t need to.

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? I think there is a terminology issue here.
That red thing is a switch- not a relay.
It is a single-pole, three-position switch.
Judging from the wire colors, you are in Europe. That means the brown is the line. You haven’t said what each pull of the cord does, but the most simple would be that the switch connects brown to yellow on the first pull, brown to violet on the second pull, brown to orange on the third pull, then off on the next pull.

It’s possible that the switching is more complex. You would need to verify this with an ohm-meter.

That said, it could be made smart. If my guess to the switch actions is correct, you could use this 3-ch switch

3ch switch
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:

Without knowing the switch wiring, that is only a guess.

This is my best guess, but without scoping it with an ohmmeter it’s only a guess.

sp3t

BTW- When you say 4-gang, this is what I pictured:

4-gang-eu
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That could work… first toggle turns on L1, second toggle turns off L1 and turns on L2, third toggle turns off L2 and turns on L3, fourth toggle would just turn off all states just to make sure they are in the off state for the fan modes. or if its only 2 speed have L3 dedicated to on off state of the light.

There is a 4 way puck relay but its tuya wifi so ehhh might be a skip if it can’t be used local:

https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/pn1oli/transplant_esp8266_to_cheap_generic_8_tuya_wall/

Might be an option with a transplant. or flash:

but at this point its easier to just go right to a diy esp setup and or use a premade esp 4 ch solution.

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IF you are rolling your own, high speed first for all speeds to get the fan moving, then switch to medium or low after it’s spinning. If you go low first, it WILL NOT spin, sit at stall, and possibly burn up.

As CO_4X4 said above, don’t re-invent the wheel. Spend the $20 on an ifan04 or something. It’s what I do.

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OK so tons of good stuff here. I will try to do all the commenters justice (seriously, I appreciate every little bit of input here.

The reason I don’t want to go this route is because then I only get on-off for the fan. Otherwise, it would be worth a look - however, the dimensions suggest that the thing wouldn’t fit into the fan, leading to a whole other problem.

“Kill it, kill it with fire” - I appreciate the pointer towards the product, but Tuya wifi products are a big no-no for me. Too many headaches.

I’ll take a look at this, as you suggested in the video above. However, I think my best (simplest) option is what @stevemann talked about.

Thanks, first of all, for straightening out the terminology - you’re right, I was throwing terms all over the place. The red thing is, indeed, a single-pole, three-position switch. I am indeed in Europe (Germany, to be precise). As you stated, brown is line (also labeled as such), and the three other wires are labeled as 1 (orange), 2 (purple), and 3 (yellow). All these three output wires lead into the bowels of the fan’s motor. Each pull of the cord moves the output to one of the colors, in sequence, from nothing (no contact to any of the wires) to orange/1, to purple/2, to yellow/3, to nothing, etc.

So - I will test the wires, but this mechanism looks fairly dumb and mechanical. I don’t think there’s any smarts in there, I think the motor itself is where the information (“On which wire is the current coming in?”) is interpreted and converted into “What speed should I run at?”).

The 3-gang Matter switch you posted looks very similar to the zigbee one I posted, and while I can integrate Matter into my Home Assistant, I prefer Zigbee right now.

So, as things stand right now, I have the following steps coming up:

  1. Check the wiring with an ohm-meter to confirm the wires do what I think they do
  2. Find a simple switch/button type solution that I can integrate into the existing space to allow for manual control
  3. Get a 3-channel switch
  4. ??
  5. Profit

Once again, many thanks for everyone’s input so far :slight_smile: I will update once I get this done, but it might be a while. Not the highest priority right now.

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That is incorrect, you get on/off for the light and variable speed for the fan. However, Inovelli makes a great canopy unit that has a light dimmer and the variable speed fan control.

I started with a Insteon canopy unit that was fantastic, but I phased out Insteon and nobody made a Z-Wave or Zigbee one, so I got the iFan04, which is fine and does the trick but I wanted to dim my lights and ended up with the Inovelli. That being said, I’m sure you could modify the iFan04 for dimming if you wanted to, it’s still mostly a pre-built ESP device that you are looking to build from scratch anyway.

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Not sure how. The ifan04 shows me one output wire for the fan, and I have three wires that go into the fan motor. I’d have to completely tear the thing apart, at which part I wonder… why would I do that?

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Right now, I’m leaning towards a 3-channel switch module, not a DIY ESP device.

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In the fan you remove the switch (red thing) and the capicators and connect to the 2 motor wires that go to the fan motor. The ifan04 is the red switch and speed cap’s replacement. The light output on that is indeed on and off though. I have only used ifan’s for mine. Don’t have any dimmer lights.

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Until the current wiring is determined, with a real schematic, we are all just guessing.

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I didn’t see any capacitors in the photo.
As I said, without a proper schematic, we are all guessing.

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I’m pretty confident. What do you think changes the speed?
I’ve had at least a dozen of those things apart. None of them have multiple windings.

OK

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The fan is quite old, none of the model designations lead me to any results online, so a real schematic is almost certainly going to be hard to come by. And since I have removed all the screws I could possibly remove and I still can’t open the encasing where the motor is located, I don’t think I’ll be able to provide more visual evidence anytime soon either. There’s still a few things I can try, but as mentioned above, it’s not super high priority, so it might be a while :slight_smile:

But since the thing has been gathering dust in the basement (we took it off during renovations and never put it back), I’m willing to tinker with it. Worst case: it breaks, and stays broken. No harm done.