I wanted to make an old ceiling fan that was “dumb” and couldn’t be controlled other than manually smart without having to buy a new unit and have the hassle of swapping it. Something I’d been thinking about for a while and couldn’t find much info on.
This one I was a bit nervous about on several levels because I didn’t know that it’d even work with the Hunter ceiling fan I had as in, if it’d go bang and pop the trip or whatever. It is WiFi so I wasn’t sure that Home Assistant (HAss) would see it and there was a bunch of stuff online about having to muck about with Tuya, Tuya Local and that looked to be a right pain.
And as there really wasn’t a lot of info online about doing such a thing I was a bit on my own with this one.
Long story short, it turned out okay.
Size wise and, it would appear that these are fairly standardised, it fitted just fine. These are all a tight fit so as to try to prevent them rattling about when the fan is running so, it can look too tight and impossible but it isn’t. I’ve fitted a few fans and they’ve all been the same sorta deal.
Wiring I had to find the wiring for the existing fan control unit, which wasn’t that hard with a bit of Googling but you really do need to find the existing wiring and then hook the QIA unit up as they show.
Of course you’re dealing with Chinese translated instructions so, not the best but good enough.
So I did all that and, with no small measure of trepidation, flipped the power back on, and it just worked the first time. On occasion, I impress myself!
From the included remote all was fine; it worked great.
It is worth noting though that if, like my fan you have incandescent or such lights then you will need to change those to LED ones as this unit can’t cope with non-LED bulbs. For me that was no big deal as the fan used GU10’s so, dead easy to swap and I had loads of LED ones knocking about.
I haven’t tried smart bulbs in it yet but I might, we’ll see.
HAss though was brilliant as it recognised the unit almost immediately, connected to it and allowed control and automation of all the functions you’d ever need with no hassles at all.
Now it’ possible to bring the fan on with open windows to vent the room, turn it on and off based on room temp and so on. Brilliant and just what I wanted.
If you need a smart ceiling fan and don’t want to pay the stupid money asked for some of them or, like me convert an old one to be smart then this unit is a great thing and, it’s cheap. At the time of writing even on Amazon UK you can pick one up for under £20, even cheaper on AliExpress.