Just purchased my first Bond Bridge based on a recommendation given in another home automation forum to automate two ceiling fan lights that I absolutely love but can only be controlled by an RF remote. Their setup is a bit odd (installed back in 1998) in that both fans (one in my family room and the other in the master bedroom) are connected to two wall switch which seem to do nothing more than toggle power to the fans (turning on either switch will power the fan). Fan function can only be controlled by the remote. I have high hopes for the Bond Bridge as my intitial integration with Homekit via the most recent Hombridge-Bond plugin seems to be working okay (easily found the proper remote and does control my fan/lights) with a couple of issues for which someone can perhaps provide some helpful insight.
Fan control seems to work extremely well. Turning on the fan light also works well. However, I have had consistent issues turning the light off and the switch periodically seems to lose track of state (i.e. turning it off actually turns it on and vice versa). I just activated the toggle state option to see if that allows me to correct the problem. Thoughts? Something I am missing (I am new to this platform).
Not sure if this is unusual or not, but both my upstairs and downstairs appear to be controlled by the same remote (actually different physical remotes but both remotes apparently send identical RF signals) so that when power is supplied to both fans sending a single signal from the Bond will turn on both fans/lights (fan and lights are still independently, but turning the fan on for one will also turn it on for the other). Not sure there is a solution for this. My first work around for this will be to install smart wall switches later today that I can use to chose which fan/light gets power prior to turning on the fan/lights. The big limitation here is that both fan/lights cannot be operated simultaneously unless I want them at the exact same settings. Thoughts?
Thanks in advance for any insights anyone might have!
Yesterday I installed Aqara single rocker smart switches in place of one of the fan wall switches in both my family room and master bedroom then wrote a shortcut to power on the particular fan I wanted to control. Worked like a charm. An unexpected result was that when the fan lights did not respond to the “off” signal from my Bond they would go off when I powered off the switch at the end of the shortcut without getting mixed up with regard to its current state. While this was a bit of a clunky solution it works great and meets my need.
My one remaining issue is finding a way to create separate accessories in Homekit for the individual fan/lights. One thing I might try today is to add the upstairs fan’s remote (even though it is identical in all ways to the downstairs fan’s remote) to see if that will add a second set of accessories that can be stored in it specific room on the Home App. Anyone ever do this?
It’s a 1-way protocol. So every time you use the physical remote, or when occasionally the Bridge’s signal doesn’t get understood by the fan, the Bridge’s state becomes outdated. We plan to remove the “trust_state / track state” feature because it is fatally flawed in these ways.
Are there DIP switches under the battery cover of the remotes? If so, you could change the DIP switches and re-pair the remotes (or adjust the DIP switches on the receiver in the fan if it is one of those very old models without autolearning). ---- If no DIP switches on the remotes, then your fans are “cross paired”… kind of doubt that given their age — anyways in that case you’d have to re-pair the same desired remote 5 times to clear the memory of the fan.
Is the plan for this to go away entirely, or just be deprecated in the GUI?
It is a very handy option to have, for those of us who have fully committed to no OEM remotes but programmatically control a mixture of entry points for Bond API calls.
It can be approximated in some control systems, so it’s not a completely irreplaceable feature, but it has been nice to have.
TBH still in some debate here as to the right way to go. At the very least, we will be making the default that a fan with a toggle signal for a light will not get TurnLightOn and TurnLightOff actions, just ToggleLight action, and the state.light variable will disappear. That way our API will not lie. App will have a toggle button for light like the remote, and Alexa/GH will not be able to operate the light since they only work in terms of On/Off not Toggle.
Perhaps we could maintain some kind of state tracking as an advanced option for people who like pain – We’d need to maintain it to grandfather existing users anyways because it would not be nice to just disappear the feature on existing devices. ---- This is just one of those things that, while somewhat useful on the margins, in the scheme of things seems to have done more harm (lots of confused / frustrated users) than good. — I’m open to community’s thoughts on this…
From my perspective: it has been nice, since the endpoint is PATCH-able in a variety of ways, to have a Bond device know about its state, versus having to track it outside of Bond (even though I can and sometimes do).
If ever the Bond-tracked state is wrong, I have a quick and easy fall back where a double tap on physical remotes or switches sends the toggle command instead of on or off commands, and then it automatically follows that up with a patch of the Bond-tracked state immediately to what the double tap was (up/on = ON, down/off = OFF).
Eager to hear from other community members and integration enthusiasts, though. Worth a separate thread, though?
Thank you for taking the time to respond. Really appreciate it. While I still cannot independently operate the two fans I have set them up so that I am providing power via a smart switch (the only thing the wall switches actually do) so when I automate them I start by turning on the switch specific to the fan I want to run and also turn off the switch of the other fan. When I turn off the fan I also power off the switch which thus far has prevented the Bond from becoming confused regarding the state.
The remotes do indeed have dip switches, but I have never actually paired a remote to the fan (this was apparently done for me when the house was built back in 1998) so I will have to look into that. If I could pair the fans to remotes with different settings that would be perfect and solve one of the big issues. Time to go dig up a manual for these things (might have one digitized somewhere).
Again, many thanks for your help!
Cheers,
Don
Don & Theo Powers
24600 NE Hummingbird Ct
Newberg, OR 97132
503-550-1579 web@donandtheopowers.com
– We’d need to maintain it to grandfather existing users anyways because it would not be nice to just disappear the feature on existing devices. ---- This is just one of those things that, while somewhat useful on the margins, in the scheme of things seems to have done more harm (lots of confused / frustrated users) than good. — I’m open to community’s thoughts on this…