I purchased a Phillips fan in a shopping spree. It was hot outside, needed something, did not pay much attention beyond that it worked and was not noisy. At home my eyebrows went halfway on my forehead seeing that there is a remote and the remote is supposed to be my mobile! Need to download the app for it, connect the fan to the Wifi, but it also had bluetooth for some reason. No way Jose! Yet, it was so incredibly…
> Need to download the app for it, connect the fan to the Wifi, but it also had bluetooth for some reason. Bluetooth could be there for initial setup. To connect the fan to WiFi you have to somehow get the WiFi credentials to the fan. There are a few ways to do that. One of the most common is for the device when it has not yet been set up to make itself available over Bluetooth. The app can then connect to it and giv…
My fan worked fine, so I gave it WiFi
91–97 of 97 posts
Re: My fan worked fine, so I gave it WiFi
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the response! Refreshing to hear that it can actually work - I think the main difference between your setup and mine might be that I actually needed the mesh because I had bulbs in behind a couple of steel concrete walls. I installed always-on Zigbee outlets thinking that bulbs would route over those but never actually got around to debugging why they didn't. Currently I'm also mostly on Tasmota-powered At…
I think you've nailed the key difference for zigbee, indeed. And I'd love to share some first-hand insight about how Zigbee works with either intermediate repeaters or routers scattered around, but I just don't have any to share. You did remind me of a thing, though: My Athom bulbs, with ESPHome, do have an annoying mode they drop into when their Home Assistant mothership is unavailable. They still work mostly like d…
Do you know if the Athom bulbs even have some kind of persistent memory that can survive longer timeframes without power?
Re: My fan worked fine, so I gave it WiFi
#93The next step would be to monetize it with ads, and put some of the features behind a monthly subscription. Premium oscillation package, only $9.99 a month.
Re: My fan worked fine, so I gave it WiFi
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you've nailed the key difference for zigbee, indeed. And I'd love to share some first-hand insight about how Zigbee works with either intermediate repeaters or routers scattered around, but I just don't have any to share. You did remind me of a thing, though: My Athom bulbs, with ESPHome, do have an annoying mode they drop into when their Home Assistant mothership is unavailable. They still work mostly like d…
I actually didn't try ESPHome yet, thx for mentioning it. That will be my next experiment then. The adaptive lighting also sounds really cool, will try that as well. Do you know if the Athom bulbs even have some kind of persistent memory that can survive longer timeframes without power?
There's only two kinds of memory in an Athom bulb: The RAM that is built into the ESP MCU (temporary, fast -- like RAM in a PC), and the flash ROM (permanent, much slower -- like an SSD in a PC).
Data in RAM doesn't survive for even a moment without power. Data in flash should be good for years and years with or without power.
Re: My fan worked fine, so I gave it WiFi
#95How much does it cost to get a pcb made with all the components? I hate soldering but breadboards are limiting.
As low as $10 if you all components are from JLCPCB's basic component library. For this board, more since there are some through-hole components and neither MCP4141 nor ESP32 (nor the buck modules used) are in the basic library.
Re: My fan worked fine, so I gave it WiFi
#96I then recreated the remote control in the browser and had the system both send the right codes when pressed, and also receive any other valid signals (ex. if I used the actual remote) to sync the web ui with the ACs current state.
Re: My fan worked fine, so I gave it WiFi
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depending on your air filter you might be able to just use a smart plug, I went down a similar route this summer before realizing that mine would remember their power state and settings when powered off. So now I just have them plugged into a few smart plugs with automations in homeassistant
I would need a device with a physical switch rather than a touch control. Sadly many devices, mine included, have "power was cycled = device is off" logic.