Custom or discoverable templates for fan with directional dimming RF codes

Devices Fans
1

Hi Bond team,

I’m trying to improve support for a Harbor Breeze / Saratoga-style ceiling fan (remote FCC ID A25-Tx007R1) controlled through a Bond Bridge. The physical remote appears to match the L2 template, but some extra RF commands exist that are not exposed by that template.

A Home Assistant forum user discovered additional RF commands for this fan family, and I confirmed them on my receiver. The useful ones are:

0000 / 0001 = light off
0010 / 0101 / 1001 / 1101 = light toggle
0100 = brightness down
1100 = brightness up
1110 / 1111 = fan off

There does not appear to be a true discrete light-on command. Brightness up/down are relative commands; if the light is off, either one turns the light on at minimum brightness.

The default L2 template works for basic fan/light behavior, but it does not expose directional dimming controls to integrations like Home Assistant. I experimented with other templates and found that RCF161 is a much better model:

SetSpeed 1/2/3
ToggleLight
StartIncreasingBrightness
StartDecreasingBrightness

After creating an RCF161 device and assigning the learned RF payloads to those commands, Home Assistant exposes the controls much more naturally. The dim up/down commands also needed reps: 1000 since they are momentary controls.

My questions:

  1. Is there a supported way to define a custom template locally or through the API?
  2. If not, is there a supported way to list all available built-in templates and their action/command models?
  3. Is there a recommended way to request that a new or existing template be associated with a fan/remote profile?
  4. For receivers like this one that support relative brightness up/down but not absolute SetBrightness, is StartIncreasingBrightness / StartDecreasingBrightness the intended action model?
  5. Is there a way to update an existing template to add new functionality?

I found template names like RCF161, RCF142, RCF98v2, and RCF118 by experimentation, but I’d rather avoid relying on guessing internal template IDs if there is a documented or supported path.

Thanks!

1 Like