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
Color paddle options. White is a non-starter for us.
Fan icon on paddle. Nice to have a visual difference for fans vs lights.
Native support with major hubs for control. Zigbee fan controllers don’t seem super common, so getting native support with ST, Hubitat, HomeSeer, etc ASAP makes a big difference in adoption.
The “new style” small/less raised config button. Saves me from sanding down the production ones.
We’re fine with simple 3 way options. We have exactly zero 3 way wired fans. Adding cost for fancier 3 way options doesn’t get our vote.
We don’t need any scene or multi tap support on a fan switch. We’d just be using it to control fan on/off/speed.
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.
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.
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.
Project Update: Nothing too exciting this week. We talked about timelines and setting up more advanced testing for Hubitat. Finally, we should be receiving a few 3D printed samples in the coming weeks but other than that we are still on track!
Project Update: Once again, we are still on track! However, this time around we ran into a small snag. Unfortunately the switch is having issues supporting an aux switch in a non-neutral setting. Due to current hardware limitations, we agreed to test the switch without power metering included. Hopefully by removing this the switch will seamlessly work in non-neutral setups with an aux. This isn’t out of the ordinary for us as our Dimmers & On/Offs don’t have metering in a non-neutral setting - still it’s a bummer to hear. We’re open to hearing others thoughts on this trade-off too.
Project Update: Wish this week had better news but the production schedule for Fan Switch and the accompanying Zigbee switches have a 5 week delay. This is mainly due to our manufacturer having difficulty getting necessary parts and general supply chain issues (feels like that’s the neverending story of 2021). We’re aiming to have these released Q1 2022.
One thing that surprised us with our test samples is that they included a working Zigbee chip. In the past, previous samples did not include a working Z-Wave chip and were more for physical appearance. Now we’d test the responsiveness of clicks, how it looks in the wall with a plate, etc. so we’re pretty excited to start messing around with this one.
They’ll be the same colors as our other switches.
