I just heard back from support. Unfortunately there are no replacement modules which was not entirely unexpected I guess given the product and I’ve been refunded for the switch. I appreciate the refund, truly and I also appreciate the support. Now I have to explore other ways to solve my fan/light situation.
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While I really do appreciate them standing by their product and offering a refund for the failed module it also feels like a kick in the ass to the customers. Specially if they preordered like many of us did. I’m sure they had their reasons, specially since they had so much trouble with this product. Perhaps they ran out of units to RMA. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that the switch is a critical piece of infrastructure in people’s homes of which there really is no other compatible product.
Also, having second thoughts now about my fan canopy modules. Yours clearly got hot enough to melt the plastic canopy, I wonder how close it got to actually starting a fire.
I was one of the last people to even get one. I got mine in May of last year and I knew there was limited supply. It’s definitely a bummer since this was the only solution I’ve found that doesn’t involve doing additional electrical work. To your point, yes it’s a critical piece. I don’t have a light in my dining room until this weekend when I can pull more wire, cut open the wall and install new switches.
It would probably be much easier to just use a smart relay in the fan canopy. Wire the fan and the switch box with full time power and use the relay to control the fan and the lights. You control the relay via a single smart switch replacement for the LZW36 using the switch as a scene controller.
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The issues with their previous zwave manufacturer has been well document and I feel they’ve been very open about it on these forums.
There have been talks of a newer model coming out with a zwave 800 chip and a standalone zwave canopy module. This product should solve all of the issues of the LZW36 since those were mainly caused by RF communication issues.
Mentioned Here
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Yeah, I’m well aware of all the updates and issues with the manufacturer. It’s a shame. Moving to have the canopy module be a different protocol is the best move. Even the wireless canopy fan modules that come with fans or sold as an add on at home stores have the same issues. My LZ36 works better than the canopy module which came with a fan I purchased last year. It’s a flawed technology these days because that wireless wavelength is overly saturated.
Aeotec has this cool nano dimmer that is rated for fan loads: Nano Dimmer – Aeotec
If you stick a pair of those in the fan’s canopy (one for the fan, one for the light), you could control them with a scene controller like the Zooz Zen32 5 button switch. You can even get a custom faceplate to make it look nice.
With the aeotec dimmer module, does the speed ramp up and down like a dimmer on a light does? Like if you turn the fan from off to high, does it slowly increase speed up to high or jump right to that power? Or when you turn the fan off, does the speed slowly slow down or is power cut instantly?