Weird issue with new DC fans...aftermarket remote recs?

[pestojest]

I’ve had my Bond Bridge for several years and it’s been rock solid. But we just did a reno and replaced 3 of our fans that came with our house (Hampton Bay, I think) with these from FlyAchilles. I should’ve known better than to let our architect pick these without really researching them, but I just didn’t have enough time to more than a cursory glance at the site. Turns out they’re DC, so I can’t do what I was hoping, which was drive them natively from the wall with an Inovelli switch and control that from Home Assistant. And the quality clearly isn’t nearly as high as their website leads on. Well, at least I could still use the Bond, which I was keeping, anyway, for our awning.

But I can’t get any of them to work well. The Bond app is forcing me to record each button individually (1-6 + Turn Off) and it immediately recognizes the signal of each. But then the subsequent test rarely works. If I re-record, Bond will often show me that it detected a completely different frequency than before. If I just lie and say it worked so that it lets me move on, I’ll finish programming all buttons and then the behavior is really odd…

After programming, the fan (which beeps with each remote command) won’t respond to any Bond commands. BUT, if i press any button on the remote, then it begins registering Bond commands, fairly reliably. However, if I send a repeated command from Bond (press Speed 1 when it’s already there) it stops registering again. I press another button on the remote, and it starts listening to the Bond again. If I send another repeat command, it stops…a button press from the remote…it works again. Also, most of the time, if I send a Turn Off command from Bond, it won’t respond to some subsequent Bond commands. It seems to consistently stop listening to Speeds 1-3, but will react to 4-6, and then begin listening to all commands again.

Whatever is going on with this thing, I’m not confident it can be solved. And if it can’t, there’s no way we can use this thing, unless I manage to concoct some ridiculously complex HA automation to babysit this turd.

So with that in mind, are there any aftermarket DC fan remote units that are guaranteed to play nice with Bond and if so, will they definitely work with any DC fan?

Cheers.

Firmware 4.18.1
App Android 2.59.0-master5

[merck]

Hey @pestojest, I took a quick look at your account and I can see three fans there. Two are raw recorded and one uses the D1x template (you accepted one of the offers from our database of fan signals). — From what I can tell, the “Basement Fan” signals look clean, but then “Ceiling Fan” signals are of poor quality—you may need to re-record with the remote closer to the Bridge.

Does the “Basement Fan” device work alright?

To give us the best shot at decoding this (possibly new-to-us) fan protocol, could you try to get good recordings of each of the Off+1–6 buttons for the other two fans? Again, we have nice clean recordings of “Basement Fan”. Ideally you’d capture each fan twice so that we can see if there’s some counter or rolling code in there. To record the second time, just create a new device (like “Basement Fan 2”) and record each signal again.

I know it’s a bit of work, but it could possibly let us figure out this fan protocol and get it to just work from your Bridge. No promises… but we do try to catch em all.

[pestojest]

Hey @merck , thanks a ton for taking a look. Had I known someone from Bond would be replying, I would’ve taken more care in my testing. It was a late night, so here’s a clarification…

We’ve got 3 of these fans, but I only tried to set up the LR and Basement ones last night. The third is my son’s and he was in bed. The basement I tried first and got the weird behavior, and then moved upstairs, taking the Bond with me, and did most of the testing above on the LR one. The poor quality is likely because after looking around the web, I saw some people saying it might be better to move some distance away when programming. So that’s the round you saw. I was about 8-9 feet away and I was holding down the remote button each time until I got a green light.

I’ve just come downstairs and started over on basement fan. Bond is within 12 feet of my Unifi AP and about 8 feet of the fan. I programmed 1-6 + Turn Off, right next to the Bond, and same thing…the Bond detects the commands immediately, but the results are even worse than last night with the LR, on the poor quality.

Can you see how it looks on the backend now?

I took video this time of the setup but don’t want to share it publicly from my Google Photos. Happy to share with you direct if it helps. Thanks!

EDIT: FYI, I deleted the existing basement fan before redoing it. Sorry if that’s not what you wanted. I just programmed it again so you should now see Basement Fan and Basement Fan 2. Thanks!

[pestojest]

Hi @merck , wondering if you still have time to look into this fan. I think I’ve narrowed down the behavior…

Essentially, I can’t go from Off to Speed 1 or vice versa. I can only get to 1 if I first go to any other speed, and if I want to go from 1 to Off, I first have to switch to another speed.

I’ll probably find a way to just either omit 1 from Home Assistant entirely, or use an automation to get to 1 and Off via reliable paths. But hopefully this is just a template issue on the Bond side that your team can sort out.

Thanks!

EDIT: Reminder of how easily Home Assistant + Node Red can save the day. Whipped this up in about 15 minutes and seems to be reliable, without even placing any delays between commands. But hopefully I can ditch it down the road. Cheers.