I have 2 milivolt gas fireplaces that are separately controlled by Skytech 3301 remote transmitters/receivers (further refered to as TR). Both TR’s have identical FCC ID #'s. The only difference in the two is one TR is 5 years older than the other one. Both work perfectly. The newer TR paired as a Ceiling Fan prior to being accepted in the beta program. Once accepted to the beta program I was able to pair it as an Electric Fireplace. The older TR would not pair as a Ceiling Fan or an Electric Fireplace. The Bond will blink blue slowly and turn solid green as if it were pairing successfully, but when testing, will not activate the Fireplace. I then attempted to enter the transmitter frequency in the advanced section, but when trying to pair, the blue light flashes very rapidly and turns green instantly when the transmitter button is pressed. Sometimes it will error out and the light will turn orange.
It seems that these are actually two different models of remotes:
The newer one is FCCID K9L3301TX (filed 2005), while the older one that you report difficulty with is FCCID K9L3001TX (filed 1997).
From looking at logs of the RF signal, it seems that the older transmitter’s transmit frequency is rather unstable, and so the BOND is only seeing part of the signal as the frequency moves in and out of the BOND’s RF “field of view” (bandwidth). We have seen this in another remote at the lab, and are working on a way to allow the BOND to record these unstable remotes.
I have a test firmware (v1.113-1-g3685989) which may allow the older Fireplace remote to be recorded. Do I have your permission to push it to your BOND? If so, just say “Yes” and I will push the update and let you know when it’s completed.
By the way, it turns out we have this K9L3001TX remote in the lab. We are observing a frequency of 303.972 MHz, and recording with the current published firmware only works when the remote is held <1ft from the BOND. New firmware should improve this.
So, you could also try inputting 303.972 for frequency in advanced settings and holding the remote very close.
Advanced settings only allows numerical entries in the hundredths to the right of the decimal point, so I would only be able to enter 303.97. And I have always held the remote within about 3" of the Bond. Also, is the rapidly flashing blue light normal? Yes, you can push the test firmware to my Bond.
Still does not wor using the test firmware. The Bond blinks blue slowly and turns a solid green as if it recorded, but nothing happens when I test. Tried inputting the frequency 303.872 as you suggested but the Bond blinks blue very very rapidly and then either turns orange or green, and still does nothing when testing. As I previously said, when inputting the frequency, I can input 303.872, but it only shows as 303.87.
Thanks for giving it a try. I’ll have our remotes expert take a look. We should be able to figure out what is going on. — We did just receive this exact remote in our lab, so we are trying to reproduce here.
I decided to give it another try and lo and behold I got it to work. It took multiple tries with using varying distances between the remote and the Bond. The pairing worked best with the remote about a foot from the Bond. I had been placing the remote about 2-3 inches from the Bond, because that’s the distance I used when pairing my other fireplace and ceiling fans, but at that distance it wouldn’t pair.
It seems that both Skytech remotes I have (3001 & 3301) communicate with their receivers every few minutes. So if I turn on the fireplaces via the Bond, or by voice using Amazon Echo, within approx. 5 minutes the fireplaces automatically will turn off, I’m assuming because even though the fireplaces are on, the remote is in the OFF state when communicating with the receivers. So I tried leaving the remote in the ON state and turning the fireplaces on/off using the Bond and Amazon Echo. This time while the fireplaces were on, they stayed on until I turned them off via the Bond or Amazon Echo, but they would automatically turn back on a few minutes later, again I’m assuming because even though the fireplaces were off, the remotes were still in the ON state when communicating with the receivers.
Were you aware that the Skytech remotes had this auto-off feature? It makes using the Bond to control the fireplace pointless. If there is no work around for this, what fireplace remotes does Bond recommend?
Thanks for the info. We opted to bring Fireplace support to BETA early to get feedback. Many fireplaces work fine (in fact, users have been adding fireplaces as ceiling fans for some time). However, while still in BETA, we are still working on improving the experience including dealing with the timeout feature in some fireplace receivers.
I was sent a replacement Bridge this week and I’m again attempting to learn my Skytech 3001 and 3301 remotes. The app finds template RFP10 for both fireplaces, which I select. The on/off buttons will work on the test screen, but when I select “Use this Remote” and save it, I can no longer control either fireplace. Do you need to send me the firmware you sent before or is this a new issue?
I also have a remote with an FCC ID of K93001 TX. Mine is with a Heat-n-Glo fireplace. I had the same problem where if I did the auto-program, it detected RFP10 and would work fine in the test mode, but would not work once set. Once I did have it working, I found out about the “keep alive”. These threads helped me:
How I got this to work was to manually program each button. The key to programming it was to use the remote to put the fireplace in the mode prior to the mode that I wanted to program, so that when the BOND was learning, when I pressed the remote button, it would be going to that state.
So, to program “Off”, the fireplace had to be in the “On Thermo” state. To program 'On" , the fireplace could be in the “Off” state.
For the fan speed, which goes: Off->High->Medium->Low->Off,
To program “High”, have it in “Off”, so that it is changing to “High” when clicking the ‘Fan’ button
For “Medium”, have it on “High”
etc…
Then, I tested what I found in the other thread about the remote’s keep-alive. Sure enough, the fireplace would revert to the remote’s state when the remote’s clock hit 00/15/30/45 minutes. For that, it seems the solution is to remove the remote batteries.
I’ve only had this fixed tonight, and have not done extensive testing or use yet. But so far, so good.
Does the fireplace eventually shut off by itself? That is, does the fireplace seem to have a timeout internally, so that it requires those keep-alive signals from the remote?
I have not actually tested it that long. It’s still warm enough that we are running the A/C.
What I have done is test the keep-alive from the other perspective.
If I leave the batteries in the remote, when the remote’s clock hits :00, :15 :30 :45, the fireplace will revert to the current setting on the remote. If the remote is off, and I turn the fireplace on via the BOND, when the clock hits one of those quarter hour marks, it will turn off. Similarly, if I turn it on with the remote and off via BOND, the fireplace will turn back on.
Removing the batteries from the remote solves that.
However, with the batteries removed, I have not turned on the fireplace for longer than about 5 or 10 minutes yet to see if it might eventually turn off on it’s own. As the weather is cooling pretty quickly here, I will try that. I have not seen any reports of this from others in the user forums. But this would be a good test to verify an answer on.
I have K9L3001TX remote as well, but the app did not fine the RFP10 template.
I think my remote model number is is different. It is a Skytech II, SMART-BAT-II.
I would not expect that to be an issue as the FCC ID is the same.
I just want to be able to turn the fireplace off and on.