Hey all,
I bought a new Hinkley fan (Chet, if that matters) and the optional WiFi kit (CWT905236). I thought I had read somewhere that Hinkley fans were Bond compatible out of the box.
I can’t get the fan to show up in discovery for the Bond app, but I am able to pair it directly with the Hinkley app. Discovery for this controller seems to be initiated via Bluetooth and not by a self-hosted WiFi AP.
Does anyone have suggestions for this fan or controller?
Thanks.
I agree this is confusing.
Hinkley’s own document seems to indicate there are two different methods / receivers – Hinkley (Bluetooth) and Smart by Bond (WiFi):
… but some of the documentation (installation information) is not available anymore:
… yet the spec sheet says Hinkley smart home app (which should be Bluetooth) and WiFi (which should be Smart by Bond):
@merck – I know this is a losing battle since once you license Smart by Bond the manufacturer is really the author of manuals and marketing, but Hinkley does keep coming up as one of the confusing brands.
Even their own manual for this fan series has Hinkley and Smart by Bond in sequential pages, with an unclear distinction of Bluetooth or WiFi or both on the spec sheets for receivers.
Anything that someone on the Bond team can do to encourage Hinkley to be more accurate and detail oriented for consumers about which fans and receivers offer which (Hinkley [Bluetooth setup ?+WiFi?] or Smart by Bond [WiFi setup]), and that no receiver offers both?
Actually, I’m confused still if the Hinkley app eventually connects / controls that receiver via WiFi once it is set up via Bluetooth initially?
The Hinkley app does actually send commands via WiFi after the controller has been identified and setup via Bluetooth. It was this functionality and what was written on the outside of the box that gave me the solution.
On the shipping box for the WiFi adapter it has “Tuya” written on it. I’ve added other Tuya devices that do the bluetooth initialization and WiFi communication previously. I removed the fan from the Hinkley app, which reset everything and was able to add the device in the Smart Life app (identical copy of Tuya app with different name). When I went to control it in Smart Life, it popped up the exact same UI that was in the Hinkley app. This made it very clear that it was just a Tuya (Smart Life) controller.
This is a good thing because Homebridge already has an excellent Tuya/Smart Life plugin. My Hinkley fan now shows up in HomeKit and works perfectly.
Ultimately I was able to make it work, but it’s disappointing that the bond bridge was a no-go. (Also, I tried the RF control via Bond and it was never able to find the right remote. Even learned commands were flaky through the bond.)
Ahh okay. That makes sense, of a sort. Hinkley really needs to label things more clearly though, since they offer both technologies in different models.
I’ve only had intermittent success with LocalTuya style APIs and I hate cloud APIs, but hopefully your HomeBridge method will do the trick long term. Thanks for posting your findings!
