Yep. I put it in git for a future enhancement.
Do you mean extra scenes that are different from the ones that match the normal light functions? Can you explain this a little bit more?
Yep. I put it in git for a future enhancement.
Do you mean extra scenes that are different from the ones that match the normal light functions? Can you explain this a little bit more?
Yeah, I can see how that would be helpful. We’ve looked into laser engraving before but the project was put on hold, thread here. Eric and I are gonna look back into it and give you guys an update.
@Eric_Inovelli I do have another delay logic related QOL improvement that shouldn’t run into the same limitations. If the config button is pressed, then the top paddle is pressed, the config button press should be ignored, then the normal logic for the top paddle should be processed. I’ve noticed that I have two light switches (in bathrooms) I’m batting about 500 on, because I hit the danged config button accidentally on my way through the doorway. Nothing like having to turn around and hit the on switch again when you have to pee.
Why not incorporate a small paperwhite LCD display into the paddle, and let everyone pink their own icon/label???
Oh yeah definitely – we actually talked about this on our last call along with lowering the profile of the config button
They are confident they can make this happen via firmware.
Project Update: I just updated the project and good news, we’ve made the deposit on tooling and we should have 3D renders by the end of next week. As for how the switch works in a 3-Way setting, we went back and forth, but ultimately decided to accept the design of it only working with an aux switch. Here’s why:
It would add an extra $1-2 to the design
In most houses we’ve seen (including our own) the 3-Way scenarios are non-dedicated fan only setups. In other words, if there is a 3-Way setup, it’s typically a situation where the switch controls both the fan and light and this switch is designed for controlling the fan only.
In the rare case you have a fan only switch on one side and a fan only switch on the other side, we figured the user experience would be that you’d want to control the fan speed from both sides and if you keep a dumb switch, you’d only have on/off control
We figured it would be more beneficial to have non-neutral compatibility and paid the extra for that feature (still confirming this is possible, but early signs point to yes) vs the dumb switch compatibility in a 3-Way
@anon88759745 @Eric_Inovelli any idea when you will start pre-orders? I would rather have the Z-Wave fan switch but this will work as a temp until the Red Series fan switch comes. I understand still kind of early but thought I would ask.
I see you have DC fans on your features list. I was under the impression that DC fans all use proprietary controls. Do you have an idea how DC control might work? Would it be tied to a specific brand of fans? (Modern Forms fans have separate RF controllers in the canopy that might be replaceable.)
We definitely want to have preorders up as soon as possible because it will help give us a better idea on demand for our first order (Plus I want to show my friends/family how cool these switches are). However, we don’t want to over-promise then under-deliver on the switch so there’s a few things we want to verify before opening up preorders:
We should have the answers during our beta testing, which will likely take place in a couple of months. A more firm date will be given once we receive the official timeline from our manufacturer.
We have this on our checklist as people were asking the same thing with the Fan & Light Switch but haven’t officially verified if this is possible yet with the manufacturer. I just put this question out in our Zephyr teams chat with the manufacturer and will see if it was added in their initial feedback to us.
Thinking about this a bit more…what is probably the most feasible solution if direct DC motor control is not not a possibility, is to mimic the smartbulb controller mode from the light switches.
This would require a DC fan that has built in “smarts,” which most of them do now. Then you could have the switch provide constant power to the fan, the paddle becomes a scene controller to talk to the hub, which then sends speed commands to the fans integrated controller.
This would work with my Modern Forms fans and most of the other DC Wi-fi enabled fans I am aware of (Haiku, Home Decorators collection from Home Depot)
Q: How many speed levels will the controller support? Similar to dimming (99 minus the dead space that tends to be at the bottom?) Or will it be like other smart fan speed controllers (Leviton’s zwave, Lutron’s Caseta or RadioRA2) that support only 3, 4 or 7 speeds other than off?
My votes for Zephyr in order of importance
Looking forward to the project!
multi tap support is always a welcome feature. especially for us who don’t have available space for installing a separate switch.
nevertheless, to use it just as a regular fan switch without the scene control, it would be enough using one of the generic device handlers which don’t enable said feature.
It’ll it support 3 speeds - low, medium, and high but we are looking into ways to make it up to 7 speeds. We’re not sure at this moment if that requires different parts or not. Also, we are doing color paddles for the Fan Switch They’ll be the same colors as our other switches.
For the record, 3 is PLENTY for me.
Plus breeze.
Would love to see high breeze where it alternates between L/M and H. Right now breeze is only L/M on 36’s as far as I’m aware.
Project Update: Discussed with our manufacturer about the switch being a 7 speed switch but that would require another capacitor. Unfortunately because of this limit, the Fan Switch will be handle 3 speeds: low, medium, and high.
Matter - while its delay is disappointing our chip is still on schedule for a Q4 release, we are still moving ahead with Zigbee. Eric wrote about more on our strategy with Matter in the Project New Horizons thread.
TLDR: If you still want a Zigbee switch, you’re in the clear. If you want a Matter switch, you could hard-wire the update in or we suggest you wait until mid-2022 to purchase. The first production run of the Fan Switch will use the MG21 chipset which is not able to update OTA to Matter. We’ve been told that Zigbee switches will also be backwards compatible with any hub using Matter. We’ll share more details about upgrading to Matter and hard-wiring the update in once we have more details.
Okay something cool - we received the 3D rendering file for the switch. Check it out!
Project Update: Everything is still on track for a Q4 release. We discussed how we can expect these switches will update to Matter. However, due to design constraints of the switch, it may be difficult for users to access the port. We have asked the manufacturer to look for alternative solutions for the design and or a harness so that we could update the switch to Matter in-house for customers if need be.
Does it have to be a physical switch as opposed to just a firmware update?
Yeah, it has to be a physical switch
The current chip for the Fan Switch (MG21) isn’t capable of an OTA update to Matter. Originally, we were told otherwise but that’s changed. The MG24 chip is able to OTA update to Matter but the expected release for that is mid-2022 meaning we’d have to push the Fan Switch (and 2-in-1 Switch) back. It is likely that future batches of the Fan Switch will be shipped with the MG24 chip but that’s further down the road.
Project Update: Nothing major this week as our contact is out of the office. We discussed a little about fan specifications in the US but otherwise the project is still on track.