SmartFan Control for GE Z-Wave Plus Wireless Smart Fan Speed Control

#1

I have two GE Z-Wave Plus Wireless Smart Fan Speed Controllers (Dimmers in the piston). The purpose of this piston it two fold.

  1. If you use the wall switch to adjust the speed, you can just press (long or short press) UP on the paddle time and it will adjust to the next higher speed. Same with pressing (long or short press) DOWN on the button. You do have to wait for a couple seconds between pushes. Basically when the light stops blinking, you can hit it again to adjust speed.
  2. I have a harmony remote as well and have the fan set up as one of the controllable devices. I can adjust speed up or down in the same way. Just a single push up or down.

I prefer not having to open the app to change the speed. I really don’t love the way the fan control works as a dimmer, but for me this has really done a good job of working around the default way it works.

I’ve been using this with zero issue for several months now. Probably only learning curve is to teach people to hit button and wait until blinking stops.

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edit: I did receive feedback and updated my post, that the default handler will adjust to the next speed (up or down) with a long press of the button. This will take care of the speed change with a short press as well.

#2

How have you gotten the GE fan control to do this? Turning the switch on (hitting up once) by default will return the fan to its previously set speed. So if it was medium when you turned it off, hitting up once will turn it back to medium. Also, hitting up once it’s already on will not do anything because the switch’s status has not changed. That will not even be reported back to SmartThings. What DTH are you using for your GE fan control switch? Can you provide a livelog showing the actions of this piston, because this is not how the DTH that I am using for the GE fan control works. In order to change the speed you have to hold up or down. Pressing down once shuts the switch off, not changes it’s level. So, your logic in the piston is incorrect.

#3

Hmm, well I’ve been using it for a few months and it works as described. I am using a custom DTH thought, so maybe thats why, Maybe I’m doing a long push on the wall switch, but did not seem very long. For the most part I will say I use my Harmony remote the most for doing this. I’ll go home and do some testing again.

To clarify. From an off state, turning the switch on (pushing up), does in fact return the fan to it’s previous speed. From there, if I push down (using this piston), the speed will go down to the next lowest speed (unless it was already low of course). Push up, does the opposite. Long press down will turn it off.

#4

I’m willing to bet you are holding it, not pressing it because pressing down on the switch turns the fan off.

Also, i’m confused how your harmony remote is showing up in ST. It’s showing up as a second dimmer? Do you have it set as a virtual dimmer?

#5

There is a button on the Harmony remote that acts like a dimmer to the device that is active. If he has the same remote that I have then there are 4 buttons that you can use. Because of the way that button works, his piston is doing the work that he wants done.

When he presses that “dimmer button” on the Harmony, it changes the speed accordingly (probably by 10% as that’s what it does with the lights I have attached to it) and then this piston does the rest.

#6

Maybe for the Harmony, but not for the GE dimmer. That is incorrect.

#7

Elaborate? Because I don’t know what you mean by that. I have all GE switches (dimmers, fans, on/off) and I also have a Harmony remote. I have the Harmony remote setup so that it can also control some of those switches.

I use the remote to Dim the main light in my living room at times. Or to turn it on or off. The switches are all GE. You can setup 4 different devices (as there are 4 physical buttons) and control each one from the remote. Once you’ve turned on a light with the remote…it becomes the active device and then the “dimmer” button on the remote allows you to set the level that you want the light to have. It generally adjusts by 10% at a time.

All of this works… There are many things I find annoying about the Harmony remote…but that isn’t one of them.

So I’m not sure what part you’re thinking is “incorrect” in all of this.

#8

Yes, this is how I use my harmony remote as well. As you said, it is added as a dimmer switch, so when I hit + or - it increases/decreases dimmer level by 10%. For the fan I would have to hit up or down several times to increase/decrease speed. Since this is how I mostly use the fan, maybe I was mistaken on the wall switch, but I really thought that it worked with the wall switch as decribed, I’ll let you know when I get home,

#9

The GE fan dimmer does not adjust the way a normal dimmer does. If you are on low and press and hold up, it goes directly to medium. You not need to fade up to get to medium. I’m telling you that the device doesn’t work the way a normal dimmer does.

#10

It does not. If you press and hold the down on the fan control it immediately goes down to the lower level. It does not adjust by levels of 10. Are you sure you have a fan controller and not a normal dimmer?

#11

When I change the dimmer level with my Harmony Remote, the level is increased by 10. I have two smart fan control dimmers (not standard dimmers), and this is how they worked for me. When I get home I will change the DTH back to the Standard DTH, and try both manual and via the harmony remote and report back. Since my main goal with this from the start was via the harmony remote, its very possible I never fully tested the manual controls, and just made assumptions. But for the harmony, it worked exactly as I explained. That was with the Smartthings DTH and a custom DTH,

If I find that it works as you describe for manual control, and as I believe for Harmony Control, I’ll update the title, and description to mention that the main benefit of this is for Harmony remote control, and has no negative effect for manual control (that I have noticed). But if you’re not using a harmony, its really not necessary.

#12

I said on the fan control…not on the Harmony remote.

#13

Dude, relax. I’ve said 3 times that I will test when I get home, I’ve also said, that maybe I did not do as much testing with the manual controls, since I pretty much use the harmony. I built the piston when I had issues with the harmony not working like I expected. I believe it works just fine with manual control as well, but have acknowledged, that it may be unnecessary if you don’t control with a harmony remote.

#14

To be clear, what I’m saying is that if you adjust the level on the fan control with your harmony remote, the dth changes the level by 10.

#15

Yes, that is correct. But your OP and the piston applied to both the Fan control and the Harmony remote and that is incorrect and should be cleaned up if this is going to be an example piston. You’re going to confuse other people who come here for answers.

#16

Can you tell me which DTH you’re using. I changed my fan back to what I believe is the default DTH (Z-Wave Dimmer Switch Generic). Here is what my testing showed using the switch on the wall.

Tap up - Turns on, goes to last setting (which was low)
Tap up - Nothing happens
Short Press up - indicator light does not blink, Dimmer level increases, fan does not increase speed
Longer press up - light blinks, fan changes to next higher speed (medium). Takes about 5 seconds indicator stops blinking.
Short press up - indicator does not blink, dimmer level increases, fan does not speed up.

I repeated various scenarios. Basically, a quick tap up turns on, but no additional functionality. Short press increased dimmer level, but did not increase speed unless the level change moved it to the next “Speed range”

Here are the logs, showing the level changes. The large jump in levels is when I did a long press, the smaller changes are when I did a short press. I’m going to do a minor update of the initial post, but I do belive that my piston will basically work with a long or short press, as well as the Harmony remote. Thanks for the feedback though, I did not remember the difference between long and short presses.

7 minutes ago DEVICE switch off Living Room Fan switch is off true
2018-02-27 5:22:27.847 PM EST
7 minutes ago DEVICE level 20 Living Room Fan level is 20 true
2018-02-27 5:22:27.802 PM EST
7 minutes ago DEVICE level 20 Living Room Fan level is 20 true
2018-02-27 5:22:20.825 PM EST
7 minutes ago DEVICE level 43 Living Room Fan level is 43 true
2018-02-27 5:22:08.386 PM EST
7 minutes ago DEVICE level 48 Living Room Fan level is 48 true
2018-02-27 5:21:59.366 PM EST
8 minutes ago DEVICE level 70 Living Room Fan level is 70 true
2018-02-27 5:21:46.602 PM EST
8 minutes ago DEVICE level 75 Living Room Fan level is 75 true
2018-02-27 5:21:26.133 PM EST
8 minutes ago DEVICE level 83 Living Room Fan level is 83 true
2018-02-27 5:21:09.895 PM EST
8 minutes ago DEVICE level 53 Living Room Fan level is 53 true
2018-02-27 5:20:49.549 PM EST
9 minutes ago DEVICE level 42 Living Room Fan level is 42 true
2018-02-27 5:20:24.313 PM EST
9 minutes ago DEVICE level 39 Living Room Fan level is 39 true
2018-02-27 5:20:05.899 PM EST
10 minutes ago DEVICE level 28 Living Room Fan level is 28 true
2018-02-27 5:19:41.910 PM EST
10 minutes ago DEVICE switch on Living Room Fan switch is on true
2018-02-27 5:19:41.908 PM EST
10 minutes ago DEVICE level 25 Living Room Fan level is 25 true