Not confident this can be done, but I hope there’s a way:
I use Homeseer to control everything in my house, but I have some devices that are RF only. Picked up the Bond Bridge and AKBond plugin. Both great products and they work as expected.
The problem is that my wife seems to want to use the physical switch to turn on the ceiling fan as opposed to Alexa or one of the tablets we use to control everything. The fan turns on, but Homeseer has no way of knowing that.
Now the fan is on and Homeseer shows it as off - they’re out of sync. If Homeseer or Alexa is then used to turn it off (via the Bond plug-in), they’re still out of sync, but 180° the other way.
My OCD doesn’t like this very much.
Short of removing the physical switch (very bad for WAF), does anyone know of a creative way that communication between the Bond Bridge and Homeseer could go both ways?
Thanks in advance!
Jeff
Edit for clarity: the fan switch is a wall mounted RF switch. The manufacturer, Hunter, claims there is no way to disable the receiver in the fan, requiring the use of their RF switch. If I could use a smart switch to control the fan & light, I would, but that is apparently not possible with this product.
This is the fan if anyone has better information on it:
I think your ask is more “is there a way to let Bond Bridge know when a physical switch has been flipped” - whenever your wife does the physical switch, Bond and Homeseer both are clueless about this change.
There are options, but none of the ones I know are free, or particularly easy.
Can you hardwire the fan to always be on, and use an RF / Insteon / WiFi enabled switch with some custom integrations to mimic switching on the load and send the Power On via Bond API? Yes - though my example is not Homeseer based.
You can also switch out the existing fan remote and in-cowl receiver with a Smart by Bond (SBB) kit, and try very hard to get your wife to use that remote instead (mount it right beside the wall switch maybe). This only works for basic / AC motor fans, but the remote knows what state it was in last and the in-cowl receiver works well-ish with the API / integrations mixing and matching with physical remote controls.
Could you get even crazier and have some sort of sensor that detects whether the fan blades are moving and/or the switch is moved into the On or Off position and then PATCH the state belief of Bond to match (assuming a single switch controls it)?
Maybe. But if power is cut off at a wall switch to the fan, no integration is going to give you control over a ‘dumb’ switch, even if you can update the integrations to say “I can’t turn on because my physical power switch is off”.
(Not trying to come across harshly, it’s exactly this kind of thing that drives me and friends / family crazy with integrations - even if Bond does help overall)
I’m not worried about free or easy, just so long as it doesn’t break the bank because… OCD.
It’s a DC fan from Hunter, and according to their tech support, there’s no getting around using their remote - which happens to be a wall switch next to her desk. My other fans have A/C motors and are controlled by Z-Wave wall switches. Believe me, I would have rather gone that route, but WAF for this particular room. I was overruled and know which fights to pick.
I was thinking more along the lines of a sensor like you suggested that can detect when the fan is on (and also the fan light separately) to let Homeseer know when they have been manually switched on/off.
Unless there is a receiver that could intercept a programmed RF signal available. Hmm…
(DC fans are definitely in the “have to use original remote and receiver” category, at least from Bond products perspective)
The Hunter wall switch - is it RF?
I know the Bond team has on their back burner to enable passive listening to RF signals when not busy transmitting, in order to intercept OEM remote presses and the like; they have cautioned it may not be great / perfect, and there is no published timeline for that anyways.
Best of luck- and please do update this thread if you come up with a solution which works for you! We’re all home automation geeks together.
You could consider replacing the switch feeding the fan with a scene control Z-Wave switch which will not directly control anything. Hotwire the fan, then set up events in Homeseer that are triggered by the switch to turn the light on and off and fan on and off through AK Bond. THen put the RF controller in a drawer.
I set mine up so that when the switch is pressed once up (single tap) it turns the fan light on and pressed twice down turns the fan off. Then you can use multiple taps to set the fan speed. I also set up a event with a timer event that can dim the fan up and down based on pressing and holding the scene control switch up and down respectively.
I also set up AK Bond to use BPUP and turned off polling by setting the update to zero seconds. Make sure you have used the Bond App to update the Bond firmware on the fan to the latest release if you use BPUP.
One more thing … Home Depot sells a universal 4 speed Smart by Bond remote control that works great in my old fans. I have three of them. That way you can use its RF remote control and it stays synced with the Smart by Bond chip (Bond app and Homeseer).
I’ve seen that remote and considered it. All my other fans have DC motors and are controlled by Jasco Z-Wave switches. The only reason I have this particular fan is that my wife loves it.
I know better than to argue!
I just wish I could get Homeseer to know when she uses the RF wall mounted switch so the fan’s virtual devices get updated.
On the plus side - the Bond Bridge was able to learn the remotes for some of my movie props.
Now when I say Alexa, engage - they all turn on. Alexa, Cloak turns them off. My friends are impressed, and even my wife uses it when she needs a laugh.
@CJMH - can’t use the universal SBB kit for DC motor fans.
@BattleStar - if my interneting is correct, that fan uses this kind of RF switch:
Part # K673101000. FCC ID: IN2TX47 (434 MHz)
I’m assuming that you’ve basically replicated that switch as a device in BOND Bridge, so all you need is a physical switch that could replace the RF switch (keeping the built in RF receiver in the Hunter DC motor fan) and therefore keep WAF @ 100%.
Then, this theoretical physical switch would just integrate with BOND Bridge (and therefore, Homeseer) via API calls.
What am I missing?
Assuming the fan you are talking about is an old style A/C fan, the Universal Smart Wi-Fi 4-Speed Ceiling Fan Remote has worked very well in all my old fans. I can highly recommend it. You would not need the Bond Hub with that remote if there is a way to return it.
Just wanted to say thank you for helping me see (and use) the light - it worked!
Replaced the Hunter fan wall-mounted remote with a Z-Wave Jasco switch and used scenes to tell the Bond Bridge what to do. One tap on the top or bottom paddle turns the light on/off, 2 taps turns the fan on/off. I’ll figure out dimming/fan speed via the switch later, right now it’s just through tablets controlled by Homeseer or by voice via Alexa:
Here’s the fan that caused all the WAF extra work. Two of the sci-fi props that the Bond Bridge controls via Homeseer or Alexa are sitting there temporarily (we just moved in - they will get a more permanent home at some point).
