Fan and Light on two separate lines. Can I use LZW36?

Got the walls open and realized they ran two lines, one to control the light and the other to control the fan. Can I still use the LZW36?

You can, but you’d just use 2 conductors to send a constant hot to the fan. The LZW36 uses RF to communicate between the switches and the canopy module. It’s a good fit where you DO NOT have a 3-wire between the switch box and the fan and you are therefore stuck with one switch operating both the fan and the light.

If it were me, I would take advantage of the 3-wire (or two separate Romex . . .not sure what you mean by “2 lines”) and install separate switches. Use an Inovelli dimmer for the light and temporarily use another brand fan switch until Inovelli comes out with theirs.

IMO, hardwired connections are far more reliable than a RF link.

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I hadn’t originally thought of this because there was another switch going in that spot and a 5 gang box seemed excessive. But I moved that switch to another part of the room so now there is room. You’ve inspired me to use the fan switch I bought in my office, which doesnt have the third wire, and do two separate switches in the kitchen for the light and the fan.

And for the record it was two separate romex. :laughing:

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It’s not uncommon for a builder to wire a fan with 14/3 wire, giving you 2 hots from the switchbox to the fan. Doing this gave the option to have 2 switches, one for the fan and one for the light in the switch box. You only need one hot wire the LZW36 because it gets split by the fan canopy module (red for fan load and blue for light load) You can use either the black or red wire as your hot to the fan canopy module. Just put a wire nut on the other.

Hi there, I know this thread is a little old, but I’ve been scouring the internet for a while about this issue. I also have a setup like OP, however I was really hoping to keep a single gang box, as the wall segment it’s on is quite small. Do you know of any solutions for fan+light dual dimming that can fit in a single gang box?

My only idea so far is to just shove the RF module inside the box, which I don’t think is ideal :sweat_smile:

So if I understand correctly, you have 3-wire between the fan and the switch box, which is a single-gang box. You want a solution to control both fan and light within the single-gang.

About the only other solution that I can think of for a one-gang would be to use a smart relay in the fan box as an on/off for the fan. Use a Red Series dimmer for the light. You would control the on/off of the fan via a scene sent by the Inovelli dimmer. It could be as simple as a press of the config button or a double-tap of the paddle.

This isn’t ideal, obviously. You would have to control the speed of the fan by pull chain, or set it and be happy with the one speed.

Additionally, most fan boxes are metal and I’m not sure how well a Zwave or Zigbee module placed in those boxes would perform.

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I think your issue is a non issue. I have two rooms wired exactly like this(originally they had single gang double paddles… one for the fan and one for the light). As a previous poster stated you pick one of the wires going to the fan to use as the one that is connected to hot and cap off the other one. Up in the fan canopy you attach the LZW36 canopy module with that wire coming in… and then you have 2 output wires which you’d attach to where the separate fan/light wires from the switches used to connect to the fan.

I’d rather not use an unnecessary RF module to replace a good old fashioned wire, but yes that is always an option.

@Bry Couldn’t I just put the relay inside the switch box? Assuming there’s room of course. And yes, the lack of speed control would be an issue. The fan doesn’t have a pull chain, it’s controlled only through the wall switch (this one https://www.amazon.com/Hunter-27182-Fan-Light-Control/dp/B000BQUTX6 ), so if I used a relay with no speed control, it would always run at full speed.

And you know, thinking about it now, the fan might also be DC which precludes using the LZW36 at all. I’d have to look up the specific model later, but given how quiet it is, I doubt it’s AC.

Yes you could put the relay inside of the switch box but it might be a bit tight in a single gang with an Inovelli. Now that you’ve posted the controller, I agree with you that the fan would only run at full speed. So I am not liking the relay as a solution either.

@tterrag Here is another option. Admittedly, this is a bit kludrgy and is sort of a Tinkers to Evers to Chance, but it may work.

Start by getting one of the remote kits where you mount a receiver in the fan canopy and control the fan and light with a remote. Instead of using the handheld remote, use a Bond to control it remotely. Bond is Wi-Fi and has its own app. It may or may not be compatible with your hub, depending on which one you’re using. But the remote capabilities of Bond alone may be sufficient.

I’m pretty sure that’s an AC controller. If you look it up on the Hunter website you will see where they answer questions and confirm fan compatibility. At least one of the fans they say is compatible with that controller is an AC motor fan.

This has the same problem where I’d be using a wireless module to bypass a wire I already have, plus I am trying to avoid any cloud based systems (I run local HA). Still seems like my best option is the LZW36 with the receiver in the wall, hah.

If I understand you correctly you are thinking about putting the LZW36 canopy receiver in an electrical box instead of at the fan.

The dimension of the canopy module are:
Height = 1"
Width = 2"
Length = 4.5"

That won’t fit in a single-gang box. So if you have to add a 2 gang box for the canopy module you might as well just use two switches.

Oh, yeah, that’s pretty big I suppose. Do you know of any fan-only zwave/zigbee switches? If I used one of those, and put a dimmer relay behind it, I could have a dummy switch elsewhere (or some kind of profile on the fan switch, if possible) that controls it via hub.

Speaking of dummy switches, are there any good options for that? By that I mean something that looks like a lightswitch but doesn’t control anything physically, it just sends events to the hub. I’m aware of Inovelli’s 5 button control (I have one on preorder) but I’m looking for something that appears like a normal paddle switch. If this is too off topic for this thread feel free to tell me to buzz off and make a new topic :smiley:

And yes, I’m aware of the windy city project, but it’s on hold for the time being :frowning:

To use the LZW36, the connection between the switch and the canopy module will be wireless. There’s no way around that; it’s just how the product is made.

You need hot/neutral to the switch, hot/neutral to the canopy module, and three wires (light hot, fan hot, neutral) from the canopy module to the fan. In the normal installation, the canopy module goes in the same box as the fan, so those three wires are basically skipped, but if there is somewhere else that would be an easier/better place to put the canopy module, and which has a three-wire connection to the fan, you could put the canopy module there. It would almost certainly need to be in a junction box of some sort.

If you’re looking for fan control options beyond the LZW36, Jasco makes a standalone z-wave fan control. Lutron makes one that uses their proprietary wireless protocol, but which I think is still local (although you need their gateway to make it work). Leviton makes a z-wave one.

There’s a non-smart lutron one that uses separate wires for the fan and light, which satisfies the hardwired requirement, but that’s probably not what you want.

As far as a z-wave button controller that looks just like a light switch, probably the best bet is to just get a z-wave switch and disable the relay, and use an association group to associate it to the in-wall dimmer for the light. You might also be able to find some wireless options; I’m not sure.

Inovelli has both Zwave and Zigbee under development. The Zwave is on hold.

You can use an Inovelli switch or dimmer (neutral required) with no load. That makes it a scene controller.

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I might wait for Zephyr just to have the same style as other switches, but if I get impatient I’ll keep the others in mind. I think my final design is to swap a different switch in the room for a red series dimmer and use scenes to control the fan light with a dimmer relay which sits behind a smart fan switch (Zephyr or otherwise).

@tterrag I know your fan doesn’t have a pull chain for the fan. Does it have one for the light?