Fan Switch | Project Windy City - ON HOLD

Hey TeRon,

We spoke to the manufacturer and they want to finish Hurricane before starting this one. It’s looking like Julyish for Windy City.

Hopefully sooner – more to come. It’s definitely a priority for us!

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Thank you for the update!

Here’s my two cents:

  1. I’m not a big fan of the “standard paddle” for fan controllers. I tend to think they should look different than a light controller in some way.

  2. Not sure I like the idea of the “6 LED strip” for a fan controller. I think it makes more sense to have 4 individual lights (Off, Low, Med, High) for good visual identification of current speed. A progressive strip leaves some question as to the current level.

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Ok, so I have been replacing my UPB Switches with the Red Series and here’s what the numbers have ended up at:

27x Red Series Dimmers
3x Red Series On/Off
2x Red Series Fan Light Combo (Pre-Ordered)

Finally to finish the conversion I need just 3x of Project Windy City. My current UPB Fan Controllers use capacitive speed control for 3 speeds with absolutely no buzz from the fan at all. I hope these work the same. Can’t wait to pre-order these hopefully in the next couple of months and see the full conversion completed!

-Travis

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It’s getting hot in my place and I’m itching for a fan upgrade. Any update on this project?

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SHuge fan of Inovelli, but I’m at a standstill on completing because of Windy City. I have 24 Red Dimmers, 4 On/Off Reds, and need 7 Windy City fan switches (I Don’t want the double switches because I already have individual fan switches) running on Hubitat Elevation. Hopefully the July date will stick.

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Unfortunately, that seems highly doubtful.

I’m waiting for these fan switches too. I’ll be needing at least 2 of them.

will they support scenes like the red series?

Timeline still accurate? It’s now May.

@Courtney_Inovelli - Any chance you could share some updates on the Fan Switch?

Hey all – apologies for the radio silence on this one. The manufacturer has put this project on hold until the Fan/Light switch was completed. We wanted to try to parallel path these, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough resources, so they want to get Project Hurricane out the door and use the learnings from that switch to produce this one.

I’ve been meaning to update this thread, but just honestly forgot. We’re hoping to have an update shortly once Hurricane is out the door.

Will it be 3 speed or 4 speed? I really like the additional speed on my Lutron Caseta Fan Control.

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will it support scenes?

I believe they are trying to use the same technology as our Fan/Light switch, so if that’s the case, it will be 3-Speed. It will still work on 4-Speed fans, but it will only allow 3-Speeds.

Once the project restarts, I’ll definitely ask them about it!

Yeah, definitely – this will be equivalent to our Red Series Dimmer in terms of firmware.

excellent. when these come our I’ll be needing a couple of them. can’t wait!

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I made an account here just to ask about these switches. We will be installing 2 new ceiling fans soon (both basic pull chain types) and I would really like an in-wall solution to control them. I have separate switches already for the fan and light, so although I’m sure Project Hurricane is great, I think I’d rather go with this to avoid using a canopy module.

Can you detail exactly how this switch will work? It would be going in a toddler’s room so I need it to be intuitive for a 3 year old and for my wife. My main concern is being able to easily tell what the fan speed is set to and how it gets adjusted. I feel like a dimmer switch is just not an ideal way to control a fan. First, it’s not intuitive to someone that doesn’t know to press and hold the paddle. My wife does not like that idea. Right now, when we pull the chain, we can tell when we reach off because the vibrations from the motor cease. Then we can pull the chain the appropriate number of times to get to the speed we want. If we’re adjusting the speed from the wall, we need to know what it’s being set to because our hand is not on the actual fan any more.

Ideally… there are two ways I’d prefer a fan controller to be.

  1. A button that toggles the fan on/off with an up button and a down button somewhere and some led indicator lights
  2. Separate numbered buttons 1 - 3 with an led indicator light to show which speed it’s on, and then a larger button that toggles the fan on/off.

Now that Project Hurricane is complete, when will the timeline for Windy City be updated?

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@Eric_Inovelli Any updates on this? I’ve just recieved and installed 2 of the project Hurricane, just needing some of these, to get rid of the GE variant…

Hey all – bad news here – we had to officially put this on hold until further notice. I’m hoping that we can pick this back up as I’m in the same spot as many of you in that I have some fans that have GE switches in them that need to be replaced.

Full transparency, the reason we had to put this on hold is because we do not have the capital to invest in R&D for these switches at this time and other projects such as the light strip and remote have already begun, so we want to get those completed first.

To be clear, this project will happen, it’s just likely not going to be until the end of the year unless a significant amount of cash is infused or if we opened up pre-orders in sort of a, “kickstarter” fashion to cover R&D on this, which would be around $80k (UL, Z-Wave, FCC, engineering).

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Bummer but I understand you have to do what makes business sense. Any idea if these controllers will work in place of bathroom exhaust fan switches? I’m just planning ahead…

Very bummed. Personally think that windy city more important than lightstrip, but, oh well…

Have you seriously thought of using kickstarter? Some other companies routinely fund their development that way, e.g.,