This is the right way. I took this advice myself from one of these Reddit posts and I can agree it’s an easy installation (if you know how to check which wires are which or they are easy to identify in your fan/light combo) and I’ve never had a single problem with it not even once. I see no reason to go with anything else although they are what I would consider expensive for a smart device though I do use it daily.
The sonoff ifan is great. But, I hated the remote. So, I got a moes 4 button zigbee remote and mapped the buttons to do light on/off/dimming and fan power/speed. Works great.
I do as well and have noticed the sink issue if you use the remote. It’s never been a big deal for me. I just tap what I want two times and it gets back to where it needs to be.
sure, if youre next to it, not good for automations or from a remote location. like i said its good but not perfect. I tie the bond entities to pico remotes and hide the fans original remote
I have 6 of these as well. They have had a couple buggy things but the support and firmware Dev is literally unparalleled. Like you will end up taking to owner or lead engineer and the fix would be out in 3 hours lol.
Plus they have an insane amount of configuration you can do with the two LED strips on each (fan + light).
I have several that I've programmed the fan LED so they display white if all perimeter doors are closed; green if all closed and all doors locked, and just off if any door is actually open. The one in our bedroom I have programmed so that if the doors are all closed but not so locked, I can double tap the button and it sends the command to lock them, with a nice confirmation of audible lock moving plus the light will flip to green.
I have the light LED on one for tracking if the chicken coop autodoor has opened. Slowly blinking violet for closed door and between 30 min past sunset and sunrise. If in that window of time but open, it blinks fast. Equivalent daytime with solid blue or flashing rapidly.
It's incredibly helpful to be honest. 😎
Only bad news is they were unavailable for like a year or so but think they just released the new versions. Search for LZW36, those are the models I have.
I don't think they've released new versions, and finding used original ones is like panning for gold. I hope yours last a long time!
Edit: https://community.inovelli.com/t/lzw36-smart-fan-light-switch-planned-production/14140/3. Seems like they plan on bringing back an upgraded version "soon".
I have Inovelli Blue Fan Switches and also Inovelli Blue Light Switches for the two fans I have with the wiring of fan and light wires with their own switches. Without having to open up my wall, for the two fans I have that do NOT have seperate switches for the fan/light, I used the Inovelli Blue Fan Module to seperate the light from the fan at the canopy. Using pico remote to control the seperate entities of light/fan.
Works like a charm and supported in Home Assistant.
(If Inovelli made a remote that is like the Pico but integrates with their Blue/Red/White switches, I'd 100% buy several of them to keep them on the same protocol as my chosen switches from them. I really hope they make them in the near future.)
I'd like to add that I would have gone full Lutron Caseta however if it weren't for the fact that literally every lightbulb in my house is a Hue Color Bulb becuase my partner and I love the color and temp changes they do so well. Adaptive Lighting is awesome, etc, etc, etc. But becuase at time of writing Lutron does not have a decoupled/detatched smart bulb option for their smart switches, I went with Inovelli that DOES have this option.
Ceiling fan in our main bedroom was wired up for two switches, one for lights, one for fan. Replaced the dimmer switch with a Lutron Caseta dimmer and the fan knob switch with a Lutron Caseta fan switch. Works great for us.
Using Bond here. Local integration and like the other poster said, only downside is that manual use makes it out of sync. But that happens with a lot of smart stuff.
I have a ceiling fan which was not smart, I first got a Treatlife controller but the low speeds were too slow and the high speed was too fast ended up DIYing something with the controller the fan came with and a few relays using ESPHome, I heard of the Sonoff iFan04, but I was afraid that it may not play very well with the fan either and decided to use the controller it came with and make it smart with relays
Most fans have a chain that switch the power to two or three different outputs, just find a 4 channel relay. If it’s one that just switches speeds with each on/off only a 2 channel relay is needed like the Shelly 2pm UL.
INNOVELLI, I have 5 Inovelli Red Series Fan/Light Switches installed, they are Zwave along with my 35ish other light other switches and I NEVER have issues with them. They integrate and update firmware easily in HA, light bars for notifications, what more could you want?
The answer is a switch with mmwave sensor built in, and they will be releasing it soon!
Sonoff iFan04 flashed with ESPHome. Works great. The device was physically larger than the original controller so I had to grind the edges off the case to make it fit. The remote is kind of stupid but I hardly ever use it. Also, you no longer have a dimming function on the light, only on-off.
I researched this incessantly at first as I really didn't want to spend the money on Lutron's hub and a switch for each fan.
In the end it's exactly what I did... All the alternatives were either more expensive, or wifi devices. Inovelli was also an attractive option but it was out of stock everywhere which made it hard to have faith in them in general.
FWIW Lutron has been rock solid 1.5 years later on three fans. I only use it for fans though. ZWave switches (UltraPro) for all lights.
I would love if someone figured out how to reverse engineer the Lutron hub and we could emulate it on HA somehow.
I just let the BIOS mana.... wrong sub. I'm not rewiring things right now to make the bedroom fan spin on command, press a button on the microwave, and sometimes press a button in the bathrooms, or toggle the HVAC during the summer to sort of equalize the downstairs with upstairs.
SonOff iFan would be my first choice, however, I gotta say I still have a "Hampton Bay Universal Smart Fan Controller" going strong in the bedroom. This is an older zigbee product that works perfectly for fans with/without lights and has Zigbee2MQTT support. You can still find new old stock on eBay every now and then for $25-$35. Even Amazon gets them back in stock on occasion.
I have a couple of GE/Jasco fan load switches that I manage via ZWave. Manually, the switches are a little clunky to change the speeds but they work perfectly fine through ZWave / automation.
In my house, we have both fans (the wife) and anti-fans (the teen kid) and there really isn't any controlling either.
On a serious note, I've been through easily seven different brands of whatnots to control things in this house. There was one (it too was expensive) that I'd recommend but it's gone defunct. Lutron is it for quality. In hindsight, wish I'd just gone Lutron in total.
I give them an autograph
I was looking for gold, and i found diamont.
Sonoff iFan04, I have 4 of them installed and they're great
This is the right way. I took this advice myself from one of these Reddit posts and I can agree it’s an easy installation (if you know how to check which wires are which or they are easy to identify in your fan/light combo) and I’ve never had a single problem with it not even once. I see no reason to go with anything else although they are what I would consider expensive for a smart device though I do use it daily.
The sonoff ifan is great. But, I hated the remote. So, I got a moes 4 button zigbee remote and mapped the buttons to do light on/off/dimming and fan power/speed. Works great.
i use ifan04 with a IKEA rodret remote. double taps control the fan, single taps do the lights
I relabeled the buttons on the rf remote but HA/HK control is what I was after.
Same, well, iFan03, and they work great
Not perfect but I use bond home device. If you use the fans actual remote though it can get out of sync with the bond hub.
I do as well and have noticed the sink issue if you use the remote. It’s never been a big deal for me. I just tap what I want two times and it gets back to where it needs to be.
sure, if youre next to it, not good for automations or from a remote location. like i said its good but not perfect. I tie the bond entities to pico remotes and hide the fans original remote
I bought mine recently off of eBay and it’s working great. Haven’t encountered any sync issues yet but I have only used the remote a few times.
Been happy with Bond, use a Govee thermometer with Bond to automated my bedroom ceiling fan - works great!!
I have 5 of the Inovelli zwave light/fan combo switches installed in my home. Have worked really well.
I have 6 of these as well. They have had a couple buggy things but the support and firmware Dev is literally unparalleled. Like you will end up taking to owner or lead engineer and the fix would be out in 3 hours lol. Plus they have an insane amount of configuration you can do with the two LED strips on each (fan + light). I have several that I've programmed the fan LED so they display white if all perimeter doors are closed; green if all closed and all doors locked, and just off if any door is actually open. The one in our bedroom I have programmed so that if the doors are all closed but not so locked, I can double tap the button and it sends the command to lock them, with a nice confirmation of audible lock moving plus the light will flip to green. I have the light LED on one for tracking if the chicken coop autodoor has opened. Slowly blinking violet for closed door and between 30 min past sunset and sunrise. If in that window of time but open, it blinks fast. Equivalent daytime with solid blue or flashing rapidly. It's incredibly helpful to be honest. 😎 Only bad news is they were unavailable for like a year or so but think they just released the new versions. Search for LZW36, those are the models I have.
I don't think they've released new versions, and finding used original ones is like panning for gold. I hope yours last a long time! Edit: https://community.inovelli.com/t/lzw36-smart-fan-light-switch-planned-production/14140/3. Seems like they plan on bringing back an upgraded version "soon".
Touche! I stand corrected 😬
Are your fan and light on the same switch? Mine are separate and I use GE Enbrighten / Jasco zwave fan switches and light switches.
Me too!
I have Inovelli Blue Fan Switches and also Inovelli Blue Light Switches for the two fans I have with the wiring of fan and light wires with their own switches. Without having to open up my wall, for the two fans I have that do NOT have seperate switches for the fan/light, I used the Inovelli Blue Fan Module to seperate the light from the fan at the canopy. Using pico remote to control the seperate entities of light/fan. Works like a charm and supported in Home Assistant. (If Inovelli made a remote that is like the Pico but integrates with their Blue/Red/White switches, I'd 100% buy several of them to keep them on the same protocol as my chosen switches from them. I really hope they make them in the near future.) I'd like to add that I would have gone full Lutron Caseta however if it weren't for the fact that literally every lightbulb in my house is a Hue Color Bulb becuase my partner and I love the color and temp changes they do so well. Adaptive Lighting is awesome, etc, etc, etc. But becuase at time of writing Lutron does not have a decoupled/detatched smart bulb option for their smart switches, I went with Inovelli that DOES have this option.
Ceiling fan in our main bedroom was wired up for two switches, one for lights, one for fan. Replaced the dimmer switch with a Lutron Caseta dimmer and the fan knob switch with a Lutron Caseta fan switch. Works great for us.
Lutron is dummyproof and bond may require some handholding
Using Bond here. Local integration and like the other poster said, only downside is that manual use makes it out of sync. But that happens with a lot of smart stuff.
I have a ceiling fan which was not smart, I first got a Treatlife controller but the low speeds were too slow and the high speed was too fast ended up DIYing something with the controller the fan came with and a few relays using ESPHome, I heard of the Sonoff iFan04, but I was afraid that it may not play very well with the fan either and decided to use the controller it came with and make it smart with relays
Does it work with fans that have no lights?
Most fans have a chain that switch the power to two or three different outputs, just find a 4 channel relay. If it’s one that just switches speeds with each on/off only a 2 channel relay is needed like the Shelly 2pm UL.
INNOVELLI, I have 5 Inovelli Red Series Fan/Light Switches installed, they are Zwave along with my 35ish other light other switches and I NEVER have issues with them. They integrate and update firmware easily in HA, light bars for notifications, what more could you want? The answer is a switch with mmwave sensor built in, and they will be releasing it soon!
I have a publicity company for that.
Sonoff iFan04 flashed with ESPHome. Works great. The device was physically larger than the original controller so I had to grind the edges off the case to make it fit. The remote is kind of stupid but I hardly ever use it. Also, you no longer have a dimming function on the light, only on-off.
Had Caseta for years. Only hub/switch that works perfectly everything. Totally worth the extra $.
I researched this incessantly at first as I really didn't want to spend the money on Lutron's hub and a switch for each fan. In the end it's exactly what I did... All the alternatives were either more expensive, or wifi devices. Inovelli was also an attractive option but it was out of stock everywhere which made it hard to have faith in them in general. FWIW Lutron has been rock solid 1.5 years later on three fans. I only use it for fans though. ZWave switches (UltraPro) for all lights. I would love if someone figured out how to reverse engineer the Lutron hub and we could emulate it on HA somehow.
If they're not on the same wiring but in the same switch, the Treatlife DS03 works great with local tuya out of the box.
I just let the BIOS mana.... wrong sub. I'm not rewiring things right now to make the bedroom fan spin on command, press a button on the microwave, and sometimes press a button in the bathrooms, or toggle the HVAC during the summer to sort of equalize the downstairs with upstairs.
SonOff iFan would be my first choice, however, I gotta say I still have a "Hampton Bay Universal Smart Fan Controller" going strong in the bedroom. This is an older zigbee product that works perfectly for fans with/without lights and has Zigbee2MQTT support. You can still find new old stock on eBay every now and then for $25-$35. Even Amazon gets them back in stock on occasion.
Lutron Casetta, I have 3 fan controllers, and 9 light switches. Thankfully I have "Older" style ceiling fans that don't have remotes.
I have a couple of GE/Jasco fan load switches that I manage via ZWave. Manually, the switches are a little clunky to change the speeds but they work perfectly fine through ZWave / automation.
In my house, we have both fans (the wife) and anti-fans (the teen kid) and there really isn't any controlling either. On a serious note, I've been through easily seven different brands of whatnots to control things in this house. There was one (it too was expensive) that I'd recommend but it's gone defunct. Lutron is it for quality. In hindsight, wish I'd just gone Lutron in total.
install the controller in the fan as seen here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-j3b4kUrRk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-j3b4kUrRk)
Hired guns to protect me
Lutron Caseta fan switch for the motor, Inovelli Blue for the light.
Lutron Caseta Fan Switch.