What’s the difference between the Whispergreen and Whisperchoice? I’m been running the whisperchoice for almost a year on the fan switch. No issues.
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I do not know, electronically. I have explained the observed behavior in an earlier post. Essentially, I can start the fan only once, after I turn on the circuit breaker. After that, I can turn it off and from then on there’s no activity from the fan whatsoever. The fan has a delayed start even on a plain old switch, but even after waiting for 10 minutes it does not start using the Zephyr switch.
Have you tried the different CFM settings on the motor to see if that makes a difference?
Also, is P258 set to the exhaust fan on/off setting?
The switch was designed and certified for AC motors so you may or may not get it going with a DC motor. It’s interesting though that @harjms is not having any problem with his, so I wonder if it’s a setting that’s causing the issue.
I have tried 80 and 120 CFM settings. I have tried two different fans and two different switches.
I don’t know what P258 is. I am using Home Assistant and ZHA. The switch shows up as a light, and the output mode is set to “On/Off”.
Parameter 258 is the switch mode. It sounds like you have it set to the On/Off as suggested.
So is there a way to get this switch on the fan domain, without having to create a second device through a template? I would rather not having to do this 8 times for all my fans.
(VZM35-SN Zigbee Blue Series ZHA - Fan Template For Home Assistant)
Also, @Eric_Inovelli @EricM_Inovelli any word on when the next firmware update is coming that will update the way the switch works to make it easier to use, with tapping instead of holding to change speeds?
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I actually managed to get the behavior of tapping instead of holding working with a script in HA…
fan_switch_up_press:
alias: Fan Switch (Up) Press
icon: mdi:fan
fields:
entity_id:
description: Entity
required: true
sequence:
- if:
- condition: template
value_template: '{{ state_attr(entity_id, ''brightness'') > 250 }}'
then:
- service: light.turn_on
data:
entity_id: '{{ entity_id }}'
brightness_pct: 33
else:
- service: light.turn_on
data:
entity_id: '{{ entity_id }}'
brightness_step_pct: 33
mode: single
Works great. But it’s still running through HA, so it’s naturally not as fast as it would be if it was built into the switch itself. Something like this would also be great for light switches as well.
Sorry, if this has been answered in this thread somewhere - I did search first and didn’t see any recent info.
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Just wondering where Matter support stands for this Fan 2-in-1 switch. Is it still planned? I hope to use this in HomeKit. I currently have a Hubitat hub so I can pair with that and Hubitat should be able to expose to HomeKit. However, in the future, a more “direct” route directly into HomeKit via Matter would be great. Just curious if that’s still planned.
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Will there be any BF/CM discounts on this 2-in-1 Fan Switch?
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Are you planning a “White” (Thread) version of this anytime soon? I’ve always heard that Zigbee is super fast/reliable but was curious since I saw the pre-orders for the White/Thread light switch.
Thanks so much!
I’ve had that problem (only starting once) on a ceiling fan, the capacitor module in the ceiling fan had failed.
Not a firm date yet – as with every update, we have to negotiate with them on what is a bug vs what is an enhancement (bugs are a free fix, enhancements we have to pay for) and luckily they were nice enough to add a couple enhancements to the firmware for free, yours being one of them. The other being adding a timer feature that will allow you to set a timer for an exhaust fan (or I suppose you could use it for a ceiling fan) and the LED Bar will show a countdown until that timer is exhausted (and the switch will turn off).
They just confirmed they could do this last Friday, so my guess is they will roll it out within the next week or two, but I also know they’re trying to wrap up the Thread/Matter firmware for the beta units, so I’m not sure.
I can acknowledge they’re looking into this as I saw the back and forth between @EricM_Inovelli and the engineer in our MS Teams account.
@EricM_Inovelli – do you know where Steven is at here?
Yes! This was brought up in original 2-1 discussions. Glad it’s being looked at. One note is I would like to extend the timer by pressing on again and have it reset the timer. Current timer doesn’t reset when up paddle is pressed.
Worked with the engineer on it and it doesn’t theoretically seem that there should be a problem. The switch outputs a full sine wave output as AC which is what the fan is expecting. He tested a similar load with a DC motor (with an AC input) and was able to switch the device on and off repeatedly without any issue. I would think they would need this device or another one with the problem to test in their lab. I’ll check to see if they can get a hold of one.
I’m experiencing the same behavior with a WhisperGreen. FV-0511VKSL2
Thank you! I understand that this is just one of your projects and debugging is hard and unpredictable. Keep up the good work!
Here is a question. I know that the standard 2-in-1s aren’t rated for inductive loads, but is the WhisperGreen truly an inductive load any more? Granted I don’t know entirely how they designed the driver, but it has an AC-DC converter and some sort of circuitry to “slow start” the fan. I’m not clear if there is any protection for back EMF in their circuit. At high speed it only draws 12.9W (0.1A). So it should easily be handled by a 2-in-1. Curious others thoughts…
Typically, transformers are used to step down the voltage, which is then rectified to get DC. The transformer is used so that the AC is isolated from the DC. I couldn’t find any details regarding the control circuit. But if they are using a transformer, that will would still make it an inductive load.
Interesting. It’s got a ramped start, so it’s gotta have some circuitry. If it wasn’t in my ceiling I’d pull it apart.
I have tried it at home; I had a Red 2-in-1 (VZW31-SN) and I connected it to the WhisperGreen. It starts. It stops. It starts. It stops. It starts. It stops… it works fine!
@Eric_Inovelli - what is the exchange policy? I had two Zephyrs that I have opened and installed in the two bathrooms (and another one unopened). May I swap them for Red 2-in-1s, if this solution is electrically safe and stable?
Left the WhisperGreen running for an hour. No problems. The electric consumption is reported at 15W (running at 80CFM)
Neither the Red nor the Blue 2-1 switches are rated for fans or inductive loads. I would not continue to use one to drive your fan.
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